Depression Time?

Power Line: The Bailout mess, where is Barack Obama?

Both the far left and the far right seem to be ready to let the house burn and "blame Bush". I guess that is an option, but once it is burned, we just have a burned house, some number of bodies, and then what? Certainly the Democrats managed to make Hoover into a goat and FDR into a saint, but in real historical terms, what did that net us? Rather than a couple years of downturn, FDR managed to give us a decade, and without WWII it is hard to tell how much longer it would have gone.

So let's assume for the moment that our leadership continues to fiddle while Rome burns, BO gets elected, and we have a good rip-snorting deep recession or depression that gets blamed on Bush. Who gets hurt? I'm sure in absolute dollar losses, the rich get hurt the "worst", but that is sort of like in a famine, the big fat guy loses 50% of his body weight and feels better, while the skinny guy loses 30% and dies.

The far left and the far right are both mad as hell, and in general, they have both decided to direct their anger at Bush. It appears that they are angry enough to see their own 401K accounts drop a ton, lose their jobs and who knows what else. I lived through the '70s, and heard enough about the 30's to be sick of it forever, but it looks to me like there are a whole lot of folks that don't understand the risk being taken. I suspect that a lot of the oldsters think that Social Security will carry them through to the grave in fine form, so maybe it is good to let the young folks suffer a bit -- give them some "character". I also think that a lot of folks believe that they "can't be hurt much" or "the rich guys will get hurt more". The media helps them think that, but it is unfortunately wrong. The price of sheephood is often too high.

Comparing BO to McCain

Power Line: McCain leads, Obama follows

The post does a good job. Don't expect the MSM to tell you that McCain worked to get Fannie/Freddie regulated better and BO voted against it!

Long Detail on Bailout With Context

America's bail-out plan | The doctors' bill | The Economist

This is a long article, but worth the read for those that want to get beyond the MSM / political sparring over the "bailout". The chart above is useful because it shows that bailouts aren't new or unusual, and if one puts this one in the context of the size of the US economy, it isn't nearly as large as the MSM would like us to believe.

My contention is that they have decided "crisis is good for BO, so let's make the crisis as big as we can". As I've said before, if you were told that you would have to invest 1/13th of your salary in your company in order to continue to get the full 13/13ths next year, and have an excellent chance of getting the whole 1/13th back in 5 years or so, I doubt it would take long to decide. When the MSM keeps throwing around the figure $700 Billion though, it just sounds "too big to believe" the US Budget is over $3,000 Billion ($3 Trillion) EVERY YEAR!!!

Here are a couple of especially good excerpts from the article:

The consequences will probably not be so far-reaching. The true cost to taxpayers is unlikely to be anywhere near $700 billion, because many of the acquired mortgages will be repaid. The expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet reflects a fear-induced demand for cash, which drove the federal funds rate above the 2% target.

Yet predictions of a sea change towards more invasive government are premature. The Depression witnessed a pervasive expansion of the federal government into numerous walks of life, from trucking and railways to farming, out of a broadly shared belief that capitalism had failed utterly. If Mr Paulson and Mr Bernanke have prevented a Depression-like collapse in economic output with their actions these past two weeks, then they may also have prevented a Depression-like backlash against the free market.

Right vs Privledge

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Bailout Blues

The whole thing is very well worth reading, but the bottom line here, as it is in so many things is that those that EARN IT have the PRIVILEGE of home ownership. When you try to make something that is NOT a "right" into one, you risk your economy learning that nature provides very few rights, and those are the ONLY rights that are guaranteed.

Any reader who has followed me for some time will guess that I am
appalled by the (purported) $700 billion bailout that U.S. President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have organized, yet cannot reasonably oppose it at a moment when the markets are close to a true meltdown. I am further appalled by the spectacle of the Democrats in the U.S. Congress, exploiting the emergency to affix massive quantities of poorly disguised pork to the blunderbuss bill.

And finally, appalled by the media and chattering heads calling the whole mess a "crisis of capitalism" when the plain facts show the opposite. The whole "subprime mortgage" instrument was invented by bankers specifically to assuage heavy-handed Congressional demands to swell the number of minority and low-income homeowners, 20 years ago. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were already bloated quasi-government
bureaucracies, dangerously freed from many conventional market disciplines. And among the chief beneficiaries of the current bailout are the most extravagant contributors to the Democrat Party.

As one of my more knowing correspondents put it: "Wall Street loves money but hates free markets, because free markets distribute economic benefits to those who earn them, rather than to those best able to seize them."

The capitalist investment bankers stand accused, rightly, of having invented brilliant kiting schemes -- ultimately to deliver credit to customers who hadn't earned it. Their "greed" is irrelevant -- everyone is trying to make money. The point is that the schemes themselves were basically unsound. The lesson is that when home ownership is considered a "right" instead of a privilege, it is not only the housing market that goes bottom up.

This is a lesson no one wants to learn, so it will take time to sink
in. But any attentive reader of the Wall Street Journal can know today,what his neighbors may never even hear tomorrow: that this marketcrack-up, like every other, came not from observing the basicprinciples of capitalism, but from trying to deny them in the face ofnature.

Way Way Back in 2003, Freddie and Fannie

New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae - New York Times

Nobody in the MSM needs to look of course, but WAY back in 2003, that bastion of conservative thought, the NYT ran this column pointing out how WRONG Bush was about the need for more Freddie and Fannie regulation, and how RIGHT brilliant Democrats like Barney Frank were in opposition to any more control, because there were NO PROBLEMS!

'These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

''I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,'' Mr. Watt said.

See, it is GREAT to be a Democrat. You take a position AGAINST more regulation when the administration and the Republicans propose it, and THEN, when it is clear that you were WRONG, the MSM forgets that and let's you blather about Bush failing to regulate. Note also how it is clear even in 2003 that the Democrats understand that if these agencys are regulated like they should be, it will mean "less bargaining power for poorer families". That is regrettable, but it isn't like taking out high risk loans turns out to be FREE is it!!! If you want to do that, why not try to vote a federal subsidy through in the open rather than sink the credit markets and then blame them for the sinking!!

This is the same kind of brilliance as BO saying "The surge will make things worse"!!! Of course, we have a press that does equal treatment -- the fact that Bush thought there were WMD (along with EVERYONE else) and we never found it is something they ignore just as much as they ignore BO being wrong about the surge.

Killing the Goose?

The government seems to be pretty happy taking $3 Trillion PER YEAR out of a $13 Trillion dollar PER YEAR Economy. Even if getting out of the sub-prime debacle actually cost a Trillion, how many folks would spend 1/13th of their income to make the best effort they could to keep making the other 12/13ths? It doesn't seem to be a hard decision at all when one looks at it that way.

I'm waiting to find an article or politician that explains it as clearly as Paulson did during the Senate Testimony. The GOVERNMENT strongly pushed Freddie and Fannie to take more sub-prime loans in order to keep housing starts moving and lower and lower income people getting homes. Then, after Enron, they passed Sarbannes Oxley that put LEGAL restrictions on the rating of the financial instruments that a business could keep on their balance sheet. Sounded good at the time.

When Bear went down, Moody's and Std and Poors started looking at the "mortgage backed securities" and discovered that sub-prime was everywhere. They downgraded the rating. Once they did that, the Financial Officers and the CEOs HAD to sell the mortgage backed securities--they were ILLEGAL to keep on their balance sheet. Selling them was and is stupid, but they had no choice--the law says sell or GO TO JAIL!! Wham, credit instruments that were 97% secure and had maybe dropped to 95% secure at the worst now had to be DUMPED, and none of the businesses that would normally buy them could make any use of them. Even though on the long term their value is almost certainly secure, they are no longer LIQUID--nobody will buy them TODAY. Meltdown caused by an unintended side-effect of well intentioned government regulation.

BUT, SOX was "Bi-Partisan" BOTH guys like Dodd and McCain voted for it--because they thought it was good. I'm sure there is plenty of blame to go around, Wall Street is certainly not blameless, but Washington is FAR from blameless, and it isn't for the reasons that they seem willing to admit. So they are playing "chicken" with the $13 Trillion US Economy that could take the whole world into a depression. Why?

Well, hey, BOs poll numbers bumped up on the crisis, so crisis must be good! I'm convinced that the MSM and the Democrats could care less if they drive the country to 70% of the population starving and the other 30% killed by terrorists. As long as they can blame Bush and get power it will be more that fine with them!

Unless our elected idiots choose to continue to playing politics rather than fixing an unforseen problem that they had a very large role in creating, there is no way that anything over 10-15% of those mortgages are going to default. The $700-$1Trillion "exposure" is very likely to turn them a PROFIT, just like the Chrysler bailout (that was MUCH less of a good idea) and actually the S&L bailout even eventually turned a profit.

I think the people that make the $13 Trillion a year are perfectly willing to be demonized if that is the price to keep the economy running. Better to have a bunch of prima donas that have never produced anything but hot air in their life going "shame, shame, I told you so" when a big hunk of the problem is actually of their creation than to actually let the credit markets dry up and destroy the business "goose" that keeps turning out that $13 Trillion every year. Do Dodd and BO understand that? I really wonder to sit and listen to them, but I believe they must. They simply don't care about ANYTHING but raw political power, no matter what the level of damage caused!

I Can't Believe BO Would "Miss"

Commentary: McCain's Latino ad hits target, Obama's misses - CNN.com

Patriotic for the Other Guy to Pay More

Biden calls paying higher taxes a patriotic act - Yahoo! News

We just saw Biden's tax returns. Funny how it is ALWAYS "patriotic" for the guy that makes just more than you to pay a lot more in taxes. Gee, if THAT is so "patriotic" wouldn't it be UNpatriotic for the 4 out of 5 to get tax CUTS?

Are taxes "patriotic" or aren't they? Did our founding fathers mention $250K, or was that a random number "patriotism" cutoff that just HAPPENED to be basically at Biden's income?

Maybe he copied the figure from somewhere ... in his case, that is something that I would certainly believe.

Time Explains Financial Markets

How Financial Madness Overtook Wall Street - TIME

In general I think this is a pretty good article. I'll summarize and add my spin:

• Markets, like any somewhat natural phenomenon have cycles
• We all want to "control / regulate / moderate" the markets to some extent. Like natural phenomenon (flooding, disease, storms, etc) this is sometimes possible to SOME extent, but at the absolute, out of our control.
  
• Since markets are human created, the psychology of humans has a lot to do with their movements. Greed and fear are two operative feelings that drive fluctuations.
  
• We layer "technology" until nobody completely understands what we built. Financial technology is the same -- we aggregate, derive, hedge, etc until it SEEMS that we have a way to "control the risk", and even "gain from the risk". For some durations of time, maybe we do--but again, the induction problem. We will never KNOW that. Tomorrow ALWAYS has the potential to be "completely new", in both good and bad ways. We doubt that it WILL be--in either the good or bad ways, but it certainly can surprise any of us.
  
• People overreact--in all directions. Too high, too low, too much, too little, too fast, too slow, etc. It is part of human nature. In government, in business, in families--it goes with the flawed nature of humanity.
  

So, where does that all leave us. Bottom line, we don't know, but PROBABLYThe "crisis" isn't as big as the MSM would like us to believe.  We better HOPE that McCain and Bush are right when they say that the economy is "fundamentally sound". It is hard to see how they would NOT be right given the standard of living, corporate profits, etc, but since a lot of it can come down to psychology, it may be that enough of the public has been scared enough by some of the mis-reporting that we may yet get a huge general crash that will be to nobody's benefit.

My favorite piece of that mis-reporting is the CONSTANT statement (repeated in this article) that the Freddy/Fanny bailout is $6 TRILLION. That would be if ALL the mortgages in the US defaulted. How likely do you think THAT is??? The CBO said it was likely a $25 BILLION exposure. That is a LONG way from $6 TRILLION. Do these folks have a death wish? It IS possible to get large masses of people to do really stupid things -- HG Wells War of World radio broadcast if you aren't a believer.

"News" from AP or BO Campaign Material

Power Line: If You've Opposed One Bridge, You've Opposed Them All


PL does a great job here. AP is trying to get you to think that Palin is doing some "special favor" for her town. PL makes it extremely clear that there isn't any truth in that at all, this is simply an attempt to get the uninformed to dislike Palin.

Republicans Control Congress?

Wall Street turmoil gives Dems opening - CNN.com

I could have swore that in '06 the Republicans went down in the fall elections because of "insufficient oversight", "corruption" and "the poor economy". We have now had nearly 2 years (or all the time we ever get to vote for) of Democrats running both the House and Senate. But ONLY the PRESIDENT is responsible for the economy?

Wait, we had a really good economy in '06 -- does that mean that the MSM thinks that REPUBLICANS did a good job to bring that about?

I'd think that we have a classic case of "a pox on both your houses" here with the R in the WH and the D in Congress, but the MSM seems to think that is not the case. Wonder why?

Change You Can Taste!

Obama Waffles.com: Edible Election 08 Souvenir

The Rev Wright "missing" on the side is pretty cool. These guys have at least as much creativity as the Bush "mis-speak" calendar"!

Income, Giving, Biden, Democrats

Joe Biden and American Charity by Byron York on National Review Online

Joe Biden is one of those really nice Democrats. He makes about $250K a year, yet only finds it in his heart to give $300 or so to charity. He believes that "Charity begins in Washington" I suppose. It is also odd that something in the $200K+ income range is suddenly "poor" when it is associated with a Democrat.

That is VERY odd considering that the TOP income group in the US looks as follows:


Note that nearly 10% of the US population makes from 100-149K! Do you know why that is? Hint, Hint -- at $150K the cutoff for a WHOLE bunch of things like Roth IRA's kick in. I'm SURE that has NOTHING to do with it though, because "people aren't negatively affected by government tax policy"! Just ask BO and the MSM.

Note also though that > $200K puts you in the Top 2% of earners! So "poor Joe"-he is in the top 2% of earners, yet he is "poor", and his chairity contributions don't need to be scrutinized.

Here is a chart of the Bidens’ giving for the years covered by the tax returns copied from the article:

Right Wing Coverage Only

E-mail to Obama: dishonest TV ad, wrong audience - Los Angeles Times

Predictably, the BO Ad with the McCain e-mail deficiency is getting no MSM coverage of the obvious mistakes involved. Here are a couple:

First, the ad is dishonest. McCain has been one of the Senate's leading authorities on telecom and the Internet.

In
2000, Forbes magazine called him the "Senate's savviest technologist."
That same year, Slate's Jacob Weisberg gushed that McCain was the most
"cybersavvy" of all the presidential candidates that year, a crop that
included none other than Al Gore. Being chairman of the Senate Commerce
Committee, Weisberg explained, "forced him to learn about the Internet
early on, and young Web entrepreneurs such as Jerry Yang and Jeff Bezos
fascinate him."

Weisberg, an Obama booster, now disingenuously mocks McCain as "flummoxed by that newfangled doodad, the personal computer."

One
reason McCain is not versed in the mechanical details of sending e-mail
and typing on a keyboard is that the North Vietnamese broke his fingers
and shattered both of his arms. As Forbes, Slate and the Boston Globe
reported in 2000, McCain's injuries make using a keyboard painfully
laborious. He mostly relies on his wife and staff to show him e-mails
and websites, though he says he's getting up to speed.

"It's
extraordinary," Obama spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said, "that someone who
wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn't know how
to send an e-mail." For the record, President Clinton sent exactly two
e-mails while in office, according to the archives in his presidential
library.

Besides, by this logic, Obama is even less qualified
to be commander in chief because, unlike McCain, Obama has never fired
a gun, flown a plane or led men during wartime.

Ever Hear of Tony Rezko?

Palin aide says Obama backers politicizing Alaska investigation - CNN.com

Does the MSM treat Republicans any different? One would think that Tony Rezko was a classified individual--maybe a REAL deep cover CIA spook. Being the convicted felon that helped BO get his multi-million dollar home.

Meanwhile, working to get a guy that Tazers a kid and drinks beer in his squad car removed from a police force is a "scandal" that is worthy of the absolute top headline on CNN.

BO in the Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, Mondale, McGovern, Humphrey Role

ReviewJournal.com - Opinion - JOHN BRUMMETT: He's Kerry; she's Reagan

Good little sour grapes lefty view of what has happened to "The One". BO certainly wasn't going the Slick Willie route, so either he was going to be coronated without a fight (the MSM plan), make a "completely new way", or be sort of a "Jimmy Carter stealth far lefty win because folks don't like Bush" (I believe the BO plan to the extent he does planning), or he was going to lose like all the other admited lefty candidates have for a long time.

Carter was an aberration -- he barely beat Ford anyway, who was not much of a campaigner. People were mad as hell, and the "outsider" looked good to them. BUT, at least SOME folks may have learned their lesson there.

Slick was really slick, but without Perot and the breaking of the "read my lips" pledge, he would have went down in flames.

Rollin's on Palin Game Change

Commentary: How Palin changed the game - CNN.com

Ed Rollins does a good job here and puts the right analogy out. "Now McCain as a 2 yard lead with 98 yards to go to score". HOPEFULLY McCain is smart enough to not get complacent like BO.

Good, relatively short read, especially liked this section:

Then his world stopped with Sen. John McCain's shocking selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin
for the vice presidential nomination. And over the last two weeks, the
governor of Alaska has deflected the arc of Obama's campaign. She can
match his pretty words. The outdoor game has changed from "horse" to
"moose," and only one candidate in this race has shot "moose."

Obama's campaign diminished itself by challenging her experience. The
candidate who ranked 99th in Senate seniority, with one of the thinnest
resumes ever when he began his presidential quest, looked foolish
challenging a governor who made decisions every day while he was
missing votes in the Senate running for president.

BO Tried to Stall Withdrawl?

OBAMA TRIED TO STALL GIS' IRAQ WITHDRAWAL - New York Post

I'm not going to put a big bet on the veracity of this, but it does sound like something that BO might at least WANT to do. The following sounds like a pretty good analysis of BO from "foreigners":

Iraqi leaders are divided over the US election. Iraqi President
Jalal Talabani (whose party is a member of the Socialist International)
sees Obama as "a man of the Left" - who, once elected, might change his
opposition to Iraq's liberation. Indeed, say Talabani's advisers, a
President Obama might be tempted to appropriate the victory that
America has already won in Iraq by claiming that his intervention transformed failure into success.

Maliki's advisers have persuaded him that Obama will win - but the
prime minister worries about the senator's "political debt to the
anti-war lobby" - which is determined to transform Iraq into a disaster
to prove that toppling Saddam Hussein was "the biggest strategic
blunder in US history."

One has to go outside of the US to get really accurate analysis of how our left wing thinks! I really like the understanding that a good thing for a "man of the left" to do is to pick up someone else's success and declare it his! Great bunch of folks!

Barone Ought Not Have Written This

McCain Flies His Campaign Past Obama by Michael Barone on National Review Online

Barone is a genius, and they often are too willing to share their knowledge. I suspect that BO has never read much in the way of military fighter strategy, but I've read a little, and of course McCain has EXPERIENCED a lot! Is it "fair" to try to get inside your oponents head? I'm sure that Putin, Bin Ladin and a ton of other folks out there spend all day long worrying about that issue! You want to play in the big leagues, you better be able to handle the big leagues. HOPEFULLY that is what a real Presidential campaign will show.

So far, all BO and the MSM are doing since McCain launched the Palin offensive is cry "foul", "sleaze", call names, and try to pick on old war wounds. The #1 on one ticket going after the #2 on the other ticket isn't really good strategy in any case, and the unspoken dynamic is that it is likely even LESS good when the #1 is a man and the #2 is a woman.

BO and the MSM are in high dudgeon, that is for sure. They had this all figured out (and I sure thought they did as well), and now it appears to be unraveling pretty fast. Let us hope it accelerates!!

Little Interview Comparison

Power Line: Sarah Palin unexpurgated

I suppose that anyone that still thinks the MSM is unbiased probably thinks that Sarah Palin is the devil and BO is god, so the difference in questioning is just fine. But for those that are still in this world, it is easy to see the bias.

Biden Admits Hillary Better VP Pick

There you have it, His Supreme Worshipfulness BO picked the wrong VP!

BO Jumps the Shark

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Obama's Altitude Sickness

For anyone that wonders what happened to BO, I think Charles has it pretty much covered. It is WELL worth reading the whole deal, but like all retrospectives, it is simple in hindsight.

BO based his candidacy on smooth speaking, "hope", and the idea that he could run against Bush. He selected Slow Joe Biden as a "run out the clock" running mate. He felt he was ahead by two touchdowns at least, running out the clock was prudent.

What he didn't realize is that novelty is a VERY important part of celebrity. When you choose to base your appeal on celebrity, you better not let the novelty wear off, or worse yet, get eclipsed. His Sermon to the Germans was certainly over the top-it was "presidential", but BO was just plain old celebrity BO, NOT the President. People tend to not like posers. Last January, we all knew that the Pats would win the Super Bowl. Sure, America likes an underdog, but we KNEW the answer. Oh, wait, the game still had to be played and wonder of wonders, the Giants won and the Pats lost. BO forgot that the presidential election game has to be played through--until the fat lady sings.

So McCain threw the Palin hail mary, and if trends continue, the end will have been "obvious". Of course, I'm far from certain that will happen-it is more like half-time in the Superbowl and the underdogs are ahead. There are A LOT of things that almost certainly WILL go wrong, and they may well be fatal to McCain / Palin.

One thing is clear, BO can make strategic mistakes, and a lot of them. BUT, is he going to be able to equal George Bush and recover his election as Bush recovered the Iraq war with the surge? That is the kind of thing that leadership is about, so maybe it is a good test. BO has never faced a challenge even close to this large, but McCain has. Right now it appears that the only answer BO has is to pull out the negative stops in ways beyond any political hack job I've ever seen. Make fun of the fact that a war hero can't use a computer because of injuries solved in the service of our country? Seems "out there", but that is where BO is at now. Does that help him win? Wow, I hope not, it OUGHT to BURY him, but with the MSM on his side it is always hard to predict. It certainly seems to to lower than "Willie Horton" or "Swift Boating"--we need a cool one-liner. "BO POW Attack"? "POW O-Bashing"?

BO Not Being Bullied, But Being an Idiot

Power Line: Obama Gets Tough, Shoots Self In Head

Gee, McCain "can't send and e-mail or use a computer". Wonder if BO ever thought to check "why"? Ever notice how John holds his arms kinda funny? Gee, I wonder why that is? Oops, it is because they have been broken so badly he can't hold his hands right to type. THAT is why he "can't send an e-mail or use a computer". Gee BO, you "community organizers" are really tough guys!!

BO is claiming that "he won't be bullied"! Where I come from, that kinda depends on who the bully is and how they are doing the bullying. If they have a gun to the head of your wife or kids, you might feel quite "bullied", no matter how tough you actually are. If you actually ARE tough at all, you likely know that there is ALWAYS someone tougher. In BOs case, I'd say Sarah Barracuda could take him out in just about any way she picked (hand to hand, guns, knives, wits, tiddly winks, etc). Of course I'd say she could probably take out close to 50% of the male population as well, so BO isn't really THAT bad off.

Headline News: Biden's Sister Supports HIm!!

Biden a born leader, sister says - CNN.com

Wow we get the important news that his sister supports him and the answer to the age-old question of if leaders are "born or made" all in one headline. Who says the MSM isn't valuable?

I wonder if they have found any other supporters for him? People are sort of forgetting who the VP candidate on the Dem side is, so it is good to show that he has a supporter!

MSM Mad as Hell

Power Line: The Press: Mad As Hell, and Not Going to Take It Any More

It all needs to be read, but Mark Steyn really "get it" in a couple paragraphs I stole, "Howie" refers to Howard Kurtz, the author of the original column on how mad the press is getting that McCain has "manipulated them":

Howie feels the press is being "manipulated" by the McCain campaign.

Maybe it is. A conventional launch strategy for a little-known vice-presidential nominee might have involved "manipulating" the media into running umpteen front-pagers on Sarah Palin's amazing primary challenge of a sitting governor and getting the sob-sisters to slough off a ton of heartwarming stories about her son shipping out to Iraq.

But, if you were really savvy, you'd "manipulate" the media into a stampede of lurid drivel deriding her as a Stepford wife and a dominatrix, comparing her to Islamic fundamentalists, Pontius Pilate and porn stars, and dismissing her as a dysfunctional brood mare who can't possibly be the biological mother of the kid she was too dumb to abort. Who knows? It's a long shot, but if you could pull it off, a really cunning media manipulator might succeed in manipulating Howie's buddies into spending the month after Labor Day outbidding each other in some insane Who Wants To Be An Effete Condescending Media Snob? death-match. You'd not only make the press look like bozos, but that in turn might tarnish just a little the fellow these geniuses have chosen to anoint.

I sincerely doubt that that McCain had any idea that the MSM would implode with buckets of hate speech, but if he did, he is the biggest surprise of political brilliance ever.

Temple of BO

So BO will give his speech from a fake greek temple. I'm not sure why, but the Nazis liked the "greek look" as well.



Power Line: The Temple of Obama

Now THIS Is Newsworthy!

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Former GOP senator calls Palin a ‘cocky wacko’ « - Blogs from CNN.com

Lincoln Chafee was the total RINO for years (Republican in Name Only) serving with no distinction at all other than he was to the left of most Democrats. The MSM has often loved him since he OFTEN said bad things about Republicans (for some odd reason, the "unbiased MSM" seems to love that) He lost his Senate seat, and now calls himself an "Independent" and CNN thinks that his comments on Sarah Palin are worth a headline.

Joe Lieberman on the other hand was the Democrats VP Candidate in 2000, had to run as an Independent because Democrats have no more room for such a thing as a "moderate Democrat". In '06, if you couldn't completely agree with them that Iraq was a lost cause and immediate surrender was the only option, then you were OUT!!! So Joe was out and STILL won his seat and is STILL in the Senate. In fact, he gave a very good speech at the Republican convention supporting McCain / Palin. Now the only headline that got on CNN was about how the Democrats were thinking of "disciplyning" him in the Senate! (They are always so interested in "free speech" as long as it is in 100% agreement with them).

So Lincoln the ex-RINO thinks that Sarah is a "cocky wacko". That is the kind of news that is worthy of putting in the headlines only for an MSM that is so far in the left ditch they can't even see the road.

Hatred Gets Bitchy

Op-Ed Columnist - My Fair Veep - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

I'm positive that any female that wanted to run for President with a "D" would be "super ready" to old Maureen. Hillary has declared that being FIRST LADY makes one qualified- I wonder if she would have brain surgery from the WIFE of the brain surgeon that had a nice degree in art criticism? Why not? If she thought Hillary was "qualified", one would think it would be a NO BRAINER!!!!

BO has been a "community organizer" and held a couple legislative jobs, including about 2 years as Senator before he started officially running for Prez. He hasn't held any decision making executive jobs AT ALL! (Just like Hillary by the way).

Sarah has had TWO executive jobs ... somehow her two years as Governor are "way too short", while BOs scant two years in the Senate (which isn't an executive job anyway) are HUGE. Gee, I wonder why that is? Historically we have ALWAYS looked to Governors, Mayors and military guys for the Presidency.

Why? Anyone that as actually ever led anything realizes that leadership is the task of making DECISIONS between alternatives that are ALWAYS flawed. We live in a flawed world--even if you ever do pick the "perfect thing", your enemies will hate it and find some way to call it bad. Leadership is a lot about realizing that and finding ways to make progress in this imperfect world.

For anyone that has led anything it is obvious that Palin is way more qualified than BO. McCain is more qualified than her only on the basis of time and his military service from long ago. Biden isn't qualified to park my car, but it seems that everyone has forgotten about him entirely, and right now it is a Palin / BO race. I'm thinking it isn't that good a sign when your #1 looks bad next to the #2 of the other party, but one wants to be sympathetic to Democrats. They could have nominated Hillary in the #1 slot and BO in the #2 and won by a bigger landslide than Reagan, but I guess they wanted it to be interesting.

BO As Community Organizer

What Did Obama Do As A Community Organizer? by Byron York on National Review Online

This is a little on the long side, but has some good information to understand BO's strengths and weaknesses. The summary:

- "The Hope is the product". BO tends to make the easily led believe him, but he doesn't have a lot of history of DOING much of anything but getting himself to the next level of power.

- He claims to be about "bringing together", he is really a far left partisan. Here he is in his own book on Ronald Reagan, a guy who won 48 out of 50 states in '84--how is THAT for "together"!
Obama wrote in his memoir, Dreams from My Father.

“Instead, I’d pronounce on the need for change. Change in the White House, where Reagan and his minions were carrying on their dirty deeds. Change in the Congress, compliant and corrupt. Change in the mood of the country, manic and self-absorbed. Change won’t come from the top, I would say. Change will come from a mobilized grass roots.”

Ah yes, Reagan and his MINIONS were carrying on their DIRTY deeds! ... and every state but Taxachusets and Leftysota voting for him!

- He is a SUPER organizer, but he has a hard time figuring out what ought be done with the organization. He is sort of an "organizer savant". He has managed to pull together a very big political machine, but it isn't clear at all WHY other than "Hope and Change".

Uh, BO Finds "Change" Shameless?

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Obama: These folks are shameless « - Blogs from CNN.com

Gee, I thought BO found just throwing the term "change" around with nothing specific behind it to be the essence of good politics. They haven't even said "hope" yet that I have heard.

Did BO copyright these words? As far as I know, he could round up all the Republicans and put us in a concentration camp and fullfill his promise for "change"-- or even "real change" (that is his detailed version).

Last I checked, the Democrats had been in control of both houses of congress for the past two years -- which is the period that the gas prices shot up, we had a single quarter of down GDP (not a recession) and the housing market fell causing financial problems. When the Democrats were running in '06, they seemed to be claiming that they could get a LOT done. What happened? The one thing they REALLY claimed they would get done -- immediate and unconditional surrender by the US in Iraq, was thwarted when they discovered that the President is Commnader in Chief. Thank God--had BO and the Dems their way, at least 100's of thousands and probably millions would have died, and the US would be WAY less safe than we are today.

"Shameless"? What would that mean? The Democrats ran on "change" in '06, didn't they do what they promised already? I mean the economy is clearly worse and gas prices are higher, maybe they can claim; "hey, at least we had an effect"!

Bittersweet Mythology

Sarah Palin's Myth of America - TIME

Mr Klein actually comes very close to stumbling over the truth here. He sees half of it--successful Republican politicians use the power of story and myth to get their points across. The part he doesn't see is that Democrats do absolutely the same thing, often with even more power due to Hollywood and the MSM compliance of guys like Klein that see their own story as "fact" and the other guys as "myth".

FDR is WAY more mythology than truth. The "New Deal" never worked, it was WWII that bailed us out. FDR did give us gigantic vote buying social pork programs that have killed a lot of the American spirit of individual responsibility and have bills that continually come due in bail-out after bail-out, because the old adage that there is "no free lunch" is unfortunately still true in the universe of reality as opposed to myth.

The idea that the "ideal" must be something that is "reality" for most Americans is very strange. There is no reason at all that Americans can't rally around the values of "small town America" even though they don't live there. "Values" are quite transportable--our forefathers transferred mostly the enlightenment version of European Judeo / Christian values to this continent. They didn't have to start a "new mythology" because they no longer lived in Europe. Indeed, Christianity is largely not of this world at all--yet for over a billion people, they profess that it applies even though in reality they live here and not in heaven.

Politics are ALWAYS heavily tinged with mythology--as are sports, the arts, romance, products, and everything else that humans deal with. We convert an effectively infinite cosmos into a set of "myths" or "stories" that make sense to us at a level that we can grasp as humans. Our ENTIRE reality is and can only be "human" ... coming into a very limited gray matter brain through sense organs that have have very minimal bandwidth and being processed WAY short of "real time". Klein uses the common "man in the street" connection of "Myth = lie" and for the audience that he is trying to reach, I'm sure that has the effect he wants.

He is no doubt aware that for the more educated, "myth" is often a positive description of truths that are more significant than "mere fact" -- Joseph Campbell has done a few books on that subject.

MSM Changes Tale on Troops for Afghanistan

Admiral: Troops alone will not yield victory in Afghanistan - CNN.com

Gee, the MSM, Kerry, BO story has been "We took the eye off the ball in Afghanistan and fought the WRONG WAR in Iraq, we ought to have had those troops in Afghanistan hunting down Osama Bin Ladin".

But wait! Now Bush is transferring troops from Iraq to Afghanistan because we are winning in Iraq and the Al Quaeda forces are fleeing back to Afghanistan. One of the few things that the MSM and BO have any consistency on is THEY HATE GEORGE BUSH and he is ALWAYS WRONG!

Ergo, it is now a BAD IDEA to shift troops from Iraq to Afghanistan!!! NOTE!! We have a TON of "Admirals / Generals / etc". You can ALWAYS find testimony from more than one of them that agrees with whatever perspective one might have. That is precisely why we need LEADERSHIP in the Oval Office rather than BO.

Even the Liberals are Noticing

Op-Ed Columnist - From the Gut - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

I'm sure that most of the left will account for McCain's rise and BOs slide in the polls with their usual effective reasoning--Republican lies, corporate money, Karl Rove, racism, etc, Friedman goes against the grain and actually thinks that BO may have some control over his own chances! Wow, now THAT is a refreshing thought for a lefty!

Tom thinks that BO is actually going to have to do more than say "I'm not Bush and McCain is". Cool! Now THAT would actually be a different sort of lefty politics!

"Bailouts"

I'm amazed at how out to lunch a lot of lefty's are on the Fannie and Freddie "bailout".

First some history --If you look really close, you will find that the "F" in both of those stands for FEDERAL. They were initiated in 1938 under FDR and for 30 years was ALL Federal. In 1968 (Democrats in charge of all branches of government), they were moved to a rather odd state of affairs where effectively the profits could be privatized, but since their names stayed FEDERAL, many people (and countries) erroneously assumed that purchasing their bundled mortgages was backed by the "full faith and credit of the US Government", just like bank deposits. They hold something like 6 TRILLION in debt, which is more than the GDP of Japan and close to half of the GDP of the US.

The S&L bailout of the early '90s had a similar history. They had been around forever and regulated heavily since the '30s, but Carter decided to remove a lot of restrictions on them, mostly in order to encourage them to shore up the sagging home sales that had been decimated by the high inflation and poor economy of the late '70s (Carter's economy). By the early '90s, that mess cost the US $150 Billion. In comparison, the current estimate for Fanny and Freddy is "only" 25 Billion (done by CBO, Democrat congress, so it MUST be right!).

Why bail them out? Well for starters, it doesn't help the STOCKHOLDERS in Fanny and Freddy at all--they are out a whole lot of money in lost stock price. What it DOES do is preserve the financial markets, without which, both our and the world economies would be headed for something worse than the 70's and maybe in "depression territory". Once the left creates huge bloated FEDERAL entities it is only a matter of time before they have to be "bailed out" with more good money thrown after bad.

Not many folks in business would argue in favor of massive federal organizations being created to do what the private sector can do better in the FIRST PLACE, but it seems that one party always thinks that it is good idea to try it again. Predictably, the task gets beyond the capability of even the massive federal bureaucracy and they decide that "privatization/regulation" is going to be successful. Of course, government being government, what they do best is "blame the other party", so over time they at least fail at the regulation, but often go well beyond that and either "strongly encourage" or "force" the originally federally created entity to provide goods/services/finance to people that are poor credit risks (but vote). It is a semi-privatized version of the old old government story of "buying votes".

Once the federally created entity gets in enough trouble that it can no longer be hidden by just pointing at the other party--S&Ls, FNMA, FICA, etc, then somebody steps up to fix the problem. (oddly, that always seems to be Republicans) ... Bush 1 in early '90s with S&Ls, Bush 2 in '08 with FNMA ... of course Bush 2 made the mistake of trying to do something to fix FICA BEFORE the "crises" happens, but he paid dearly for that attempt! Americans seem to want to ignore reality as long as possible. Last big fix to FICA was Reagan in '92 ... REALLY the "largest tax increase in history" since the upper limits keep growing. Again, note the Republican cleaning up the Democrats mess--and, they of course love to howl when the cleanup of their own mess adds to the deficit!!

It used to be that Democrats handed out programs and Republicans raised taxes to pay for them. The Democrats and MSM liked that relationship. Reagan changed that, while he DID raise quite a few taxes, he decided that ultimately that wasn't a good answer for the country since the high taxes continued to push down the potential for economic growth, thus reducing the standard of living for all. The cutting the taxes ignited the 30 years of best in history US economic growth that we have just gone through.

BUT, folks still seem to believe that one can create a whole bunch of new programs that will somehow "redistribute the pie" without stopping the pie from growing. It has never worked in the past because the folks that make the pie figure that there ought to be some reward to all that work they are doing. Eventually, Democrats pretty much want to turn the country into a giant concentration camp, only what they WANT is the top 1-5% of the folks working like dogs and getting as little as they can possibly give them and the other 95-99% voting Democrat and complaining that the 1-5% aren't working hard enough.

If ONLY the top 1-5% were actually as stupid as the Democrats typically believe they are, that might have some prayer of working.

Uh, BO Finds "Change" Shameless?

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Obama: These folks are shameless « - Blogs from CNN.com

Gee, I thought BO found just throwing the term "change" around with nothing specific behind it to be the essence of good politics. They haven't even said "hope" yet that I have heard.

Did BO copyright these words? As far as I know, he could round up all the Republicans and put us in a concentration camp and fullfill his promise for "change"-- or even "real change" (that is his detailed version).

Last I checked, the Democrats had been in control of both houses of congress for the past two years -- which is the period that the gas prices shot up, we had a single quarter of down GDP (not a recession) and the housing market fell causing financial problems. When the Democrats were running in '06, they seemed to be claiming that they could get a LOT done. What happened? The one thing they REALLY claimed they would get done -- immediate and unconditional surrender by the US in Iraq, was thwarted when they discovered that the President is Commnader in Chief. Thank God ... had BO and the Dems their way, at least 100's of thousands and probably millions would have died, and the US would be WAY less safe than we are today.

"Shameless"?

MSM Has Change Of Heart on Religion

Pastor: GOP may be downplaying Palin's religious beliefs - CNN.com

BO ran along for nearly a year before the Hillary campaign brought out the views of the church he had attended for 20 years. MSM view? "BO's religion is a private matter, no reason to look" ... at least for BO.

Of course in BOs case, the church was anti-American, anti-semetic, and racist against whites. One MAY think that all those views would be HIGHLY appropriate to be examined.

In Palin's case, it is pretty much standard reasonably fundamentalist Christianity very close to what I grew up with and what probably 20-30 million US citizens believe -- and in fact is not really much out of touch with what something in the 200+ million would at least profess to believe. God is involved in the world, there are important moral issues relative to both this and the next life, God may well pass "judgement" (although for a human to claim they know what is "judgement" is always shakey, but often done).

Why the difference in treatment? Well, certainly most of it is good old MSM bias, where "if a Republican does it, it is probably evil, stupid, fattening, or all of the above" ... so BO's religion is most likely fine in their minds, and Palin's is suspect at best. I think the other part in this case is that BO's church pretty much sounds like the beliefs of the MSM -- anti-American, anti-Jewish and anti-white. No doubt they saw those views and thought "sounds like a reasonable church".

Palin's church sounds pretty foreign to them ... real spirit and authority of God, pro-American, pro-family, pro-life, pro-personal responsibility, etc ... all those beliefs are "out there" relative to the MSM.

WOW, McCain Palin Deadlocked with BO and Slow Joe?

McCain, Obama deadlocked in presidential race - CNN.com

Maybe the MSM doesn't really hold ALL the cards! Sounds like with the addition of Sarah Barracuda and the convention bounce, BO may be in some trouble. Maybe beating up on a pregnant 17 year old girl isn't the kind of thing that most Americans find palatable?

Who knows ... maybe there is hope yet!

Why Must the Left Destroy Palin?

Why They Hate Her

The whole article is OK, but the summary is in a single paragraph. There are a whole lot of reasons for the left to hate Palin, a woman that is a Republican is almost as galling to them as a black Republican, but the MAIN reason is the one below. Leftism demands destruction of the family, the family provides a conduit for hated moral content to be transmitted to children outside the control of the state. For leftism and collectivism to be triumphant, the family MUST be destroyed. One of the main tenents that they hold sacred to do that is that a "traditional family", with kids from one couple that stays together MUST be "demeaning, constraining, damagine, etc" to the woman. It is IMPOSSIBLE to be an "intelligent, successful, influential, fullfilled, etc" woman AND be in a traditional family. Sarah Palin is an example of something the left elite would say CAN'T EXIST! She must be destroyed!

The simple fact of her being a pro-life married mother of five with a thriving political career was--before anything else about her was known--enough for the left and its outliers to target her for destruction. She could not be allowed to contradict symbolically one of the central narratives of the left. How galling it will be to Sarah Palin's many new enemies if she survives this assault and prevails. If she does, her success may be an important moment in the struggle to shape not just America's politics but its culture.

Saint Trooper Speaks!

Trooper in Palin probe tells his side - CNN.com

Well, obviously this trooper is great and Palin is the devil. I mean this guy has "admitted to mistakes and has learned from them"! Assuming he has a "D" next to his name, that would exonerate him from anything. Now, when he was actually investigated, here is what was found:

In 2006, state investigators found Wooten guilty of "a significant
pattern of judgment failures," including using a Taser on his
10-year-old stepson and drinking beer while operating a state trooper
vehicle. Wooten was suspended for 10 days as "a last chance to take
corrective action."

But, he has a LOT of explanations, and even though he was found guilty of drinking, he says he wasn't. Sarah Palin is a definite "R" that has even been willing to sign up as a VP candidate that could cause BO some challenge. Certainly that choice deserves punishment -- death if possible, but if that can't be pulled off, the Ds and the MSM will go for whatever they can.

Clearly Wooten was framed ... CNN covers his side very well, his 10-year old was HAPPY to be tasered! I think that is why they invented the things-to make kids happy. If only Wooten would get the picture and come out hard after Sarah, we would KNOW that he is completely in the right and truthful. I mean, certainly you can trust a guy that went through a messy divorce from the womans sister, those are NEVER the kind of folks that bear a grudge!

Artists and Republicans

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Heart condemns McCain-Palin use of ‘Barracuda’ « - Blogs from CNN.com

I happened to watch a bit of Leno last night after the McCain speech. 100% down on Sara Palin, McCain and everything Republican -- to the point that he even lost his studio audience and had to make some lame statement about "tension in the room". There are always folks in the entertainment industry "condeming Republicans" in one way or another, but I always wonder if they really understand what that means.

I'm sure that the message of Heart is basically "We hate Republicans", which other than hate not being the nicest of emotions, is fine. I wonder if the Beatles ever condemned Charlie Manson's use of "Helter Skelter"? Somehow I doubt it.

I listen to NPR every day, and they are CONSTANTLY concerned about "how partisan Republicans are". I'm not really sure what "partisan" means other than "thinking differently in a group", which apparently NPR and Heart are actually against. Sooner or later, "diversity of thought" is going to mean that someone doesn't agree with you, and in fact you find their opinions to be "wrong" in some sense, maybe even a very significant sense. If "freedom" has any meaning, one would think that such "partisanship" would be very much expected. Having multiple competing ideas would seem to be a great way to figure out what works and what doesn't -- unless you are already certain that your ideas DON'T work and have realized that the only way to succeed is to suppress the ideas of the opposition.

The supposed "liberal folks" -- art, media, education, etc are drawn to a set of ideas that probably they even realize don't work. Radical income distribution, destruction of the family, inability to defend the nation militarily, anti-business, etc. When those ideas are put into practice, the only way they can "succeed" is with a dictator (since people won't vote for actual failure for long), who promptly destroys the individual rights that the arts, media and education depend on as well as the economic surplus (funds beyond food, clothing, shelter) that the more "elite" require to exist. It seems they are somehow forced to bite, and if possible even kill the very hand that "feeds" their existence.

Strangely, the modern "conservative" (which are actually the true "liberals") has no trouble liking BOTH Heart and "Sarah Barracuda".

Nice Cover Contrast

Us Weekly Cover Blasts Sarah Palin, but for the Obamas It’s a Cakewalk - America’s Election HQ

Little difference in magazine cover treatment between BO and SP? Nah, there is no bias in the MSM!

Secret Economic Data

BEA: News Release: Gross Domestic Product and Corporate Profits

As the Democrats and the MSM tell us, we are deep in the SECOND "Bush Recession". The old definition of "recession" was two or more consecutive quarters with negative GDP growth. We don't know the NEW definition yet (Republican President = Recession?), but apparently we can now be in a recession with a GDP growth rate of 3.3%!

I also love their assessment of why we achieved this growth:

The acceleration in real GDP growth in the second quarter primarily reflected a larger decrease in imports, an acceleration in exports, an acceleration in PCE, a smaller decrease in residential fixed investment, and an upturn in state and local government spending that were partly offset by a larger decrease in inventory investment.

<br />Gee, less imports and more exports--that must be "double secret", I'm not even sure that BO would be able to spin that as bad news!<br /><br />Clinton, from '93 - 2000 would have spent 14 quarters in "recession" if the "new definition" has anything at all to do with GDP. <br />

Lieberman a Liar Too

Democrats attack Lieberman, saying he lied to delegates - CNN.com

Democrats are always the truthful ones. Strange how a practicing Jewish guy that was their own VP candidate in 2000 is taking the time to get up there and "lie" in front of the Republican convention and is supporting the Republican candidate. There is no way that such a guy could be principled and standing up for what he believes to be true!

So John McCain, a guy that the press AND the Democrats LOVED when he was disagreeing with how Bush was carrying out the war in Iraq, against the Bush tax cuts, part of the "gang of whatever" that prevented Republicans from using the "nuclear option" in the Senate to get Bush appointments through is now "just like Bush"!

Could it be possible that Lieberman and McCain are still where they always were -- standing up for principles that they believe in, while the Democrats and the media have slid farther and farther to the left? If someone sees BO as not doing an effective job of "reaching across the aisle", that makes them a LIAR?

McCain has a long history of being bipartisan. I tend to disagree with a Republican being bipartisan because of exactly what we see here. As long as that bipartisanship is damaging to the Republican cause, the MSM treats the bipartisan Republican as a HERO, but as soon as those bipartisan actions could aid them in a contest with DEMOCRATS, that history is completely lost and they are "another Bush" (or whomever the Republican MSM demon of the day is).

Iraq? Where is Iraq?

Iraq's caldron cools down - Opinion - USATODAY.com

As readers of the MSM know, we lost the war in Iraq, the surge was a failure, and the early recognition of these "facts" is the chief reason that we have the brilliant Dems, BO and Joe the Plagarist running for President.

Oh, but wait, page 100 ... it appears that we DIDN'T lose the war and things continue to look up and up. They turned ANBAR over to Iraqi control!! One would think this is a national secret on the same level as the economy growing at 3.3% in the 2nd quarter during the "recession".

The MSM has decided that if reality favors Republican policies, the answer is SIMPLE -- down with reality, up with fantasy!!