Hey Hill-Billy, WRONG BUTTON!!

VIDEO: Wrong red button - David S. Cloud - POLITICO.com

For starters, what could possibly be a more reasonable way to try to "improve" relations with Russia than to give them a BIG RED BUTTON!! Let's see now, has there ever been any BUTTON involved in US / Russian relations??? Oh well, as long as we are being stupid, lets just muddle on. Hey, let's denigrate the previous US administration to a foreign government that we might have to do tough negotiations with!!! That's smart, shows the US people elect STUPID PEOPLE from time to time --- er, well, IN THE PAST!!!

Here we are, let me mention my wonderful self Hill Billy, qualified for this post by hanging around a womanizing husband that treated me like crap for a long time. Oh, and of course there is Joe "let me copy your paper" Biden, and the legendary BO, failed community organizer from Chicago.

See, it says RESET !!! Oops??? It doesn't??? You mean our most brilliant in the history of the universe administration can't find anyone that knows the difference between "reset" and "overload" in Russian??? Hmmm, damn!!

Ok, well at least nobody in the MSM or late night TV will make fun of the BO Administration, so that is good. Too darned bad that we haven't cleaned up the rest of the media yet, so no doubt some right wing zealot idiots will pick this up and take it the wrong way. No matter -- soon we will have all that "hate media" off the air and have those wingnuts rounded up and "dissappeared".

Anyway, the new administration is tough, fair, and SMART ... especially SMART!!!

Gotta love this one off another site in passing:

Translation gaffes are nothing new. President Kennedy famously declared himself a jelly donut standing in Berlin. President Carter's translator, wishing to express the commander in chief's enthusiasm upon arriving in Warsaw, mistakenly told the stunned Poles that Carter would like to make love to them.

Let's see here ... Kennedy, Carter, Obama??? Pattern? They are all the "smart ones", right? How could such a thing happen to them? I'm guessing "right wing plot" -- only reasonable explanation.

A Conflict of Visions

This book by Thomas Sowell takes it's place in 3rd position in my all time book hall of fame behind "Closing of the American Mind" and "Ideas Have Consequences". The book is smaller in the scope of ideas dealt with, but much more reachable than than the other two books.

The central theme is that there are two primary visions that people and "schools of thought" have as their initial "pre-analytic models of thinking".

Constrained - Largely the Judaeo / Christian view of man as "flawed, incomplete, incapable of reaching perfection". Social goods must be obtained by providing incentives and disincentives to allow individuals and society in general to move forward. Much of human knowledge is implicit -- buried in traditions, mores, institutions and practices that are effectively unconscious. Trying to make rapid and supposedly "well understood" change due to supposedly superior modern knowledge is likely to destroy rather than improve the situation of most of society.

Unconstrained -- Man is the measure of all things and man's basic character is good and clearly perfectible. Rather than attempting to vaguely move forward via indirect incentives and disincentives, the most intellectually and morally superior people of the current time must take direct action to achieve results. The results desired are clear -- equality of economic OUTCOME, "justice" of all sorts, recognition of each person as a unique, special and worthy individual. Since human kind is moving forward, those alive today are best able to decide what is best -- history, tradition, laws, institutions, cultures, etc are dangerous in that they are always less perfect than the currently most advanced thinking of the current intellectuals. 

Naturally, nobody is purely constrained or unconstrained, but in general, conservatives start from the constrained vision and liberals start from the unconstrained. Communication between those of different visions is extremely difficult. As Sowell says after discussing some common terms like "equality" or "justice":

One consequence .. is that those with different visions often argue past each other, even when they accept the same rules of logic and utilize the same data, for the same terms of discourse signify very different things.

One of those very different things is process vs results. The unconstrained vision person will believe that some good, say "equality of income" can easily be directly achieved by adequately communicating it to the masses, and if needed simply "making it so" via redistribution of some sort. The constrained vision will believe that any such attempt will be highly likely to reduce the overall ability of the society to produce goods and end up leaving all worse off. They see "equality of income" as something barely of any use if the standard of living of the whole of society can be improved more reasonably by having inequality of income.

There are countless examples in the book of how various thinkers -- Rosseau, Smith, Jefferson, Hobbes, Hayek, Mill, Burke and fit into this framework and how it helps make sense of the vast differences in how people look at the same issues. The fact that most people will deny all manner of facts in order to maintain their vision is also covered.

 For example, even though "National Socialism" in Germany had been widely praised by the unconstrained camp prior to WWII, the descent of something that they generally admired into a vicious totalitarian regime forced them to abandon their former name "socialists" and take the one that the constrained vision previously held "liberal". They changed their name, but they never changed their belief -- which of course is what actually led to the disaster in Germany, not the name.

I recommend the book very highly, and it is especially important in these times as the US seems to be shifting from a constrained vision (the one held by our founding fathers), again toward an unconstrained vision as we did under FDR and to a lesser degree during the LBJ "Great Society".

BO Supports Cheney

The Obama Justice Department Adopts the George W. Bush Administration's Legal Stance on Presidential Powers - WSJ.com

I applaud this of course, but it is amazing to watch how the MSM allows the BO admin to say one thing in order to be popular with the sheep, and then do another. GREAT, if the "other" keeps us safe, not so great if the hidden agenda is messing up the economy or opening portals for terrorists.

The Obama Justice Department has adopted a legal stance identical to, if not more aggressive than, the Bush version. It argues that the court-forced disclosure of the surveillance programs would cause "exceptional harm to national security" by exposing intelligence sources and methods. Last Friday the Ninth Circuit denied the latest emergency motion to dismiss, again kicking matters back to Judge Walker.

Yes We Did!

John Yoo Says Barack Obama's Assault on George W. Bush's Antiterror Strategy Will Inhibit Counterterrorism Officials - WSJ.com

But maybe we can't any longer thanks to BO and company? The evil John Yoo, demonized of late in the MSM writes a short sweet article that states the obvious. If terrorists attack on US soil, the US troops aren't going to seek a court order before moving into whatever position they take up for cover. Had US forces followed such rules during the civil war, it could have never have been fought, let alone won by the North, and THEN where would BO be?

The hatred of Bush lives on and it appears that it will now drive the BO minions and the MSM to tie our hands ever more firmly -- unfortunately, most likely until we fall on our faces and eventually some opportunistic terrorist will put a bullet in the back of our collective head.

Poverty In America

Michelle Obama serves food to D.C. poor and homeless, but... | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times

Gotta love a country where the homeless have cell phones! Man, those 7 years of Bush neglect must have been hell -- suppose the standard after 8 more will be the the homeless have electric cars?

The BO Deception

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Deception at Core of Obama Plans

"Our economy did not fall into decline overnight," he averred. Indeed, it all began before the housing crisis. What did we do wrong? We are paying for past sins in three principal areas: energy, health care, and education -- importing too much oil and not finding new sources of energy (as in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Outer Continental Shelf?), not reforming health care, and tolerating too many bad schools.

The "day of reckoning" has now arrived. And because "it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we'll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament," Obama has come to redeem us with his far-seeing program of universal, heavily nationalized health care; a cap-and-trade tax on energy; and a major federalization of education with universal access to college as the goal.

Amazing. As an explanation of our current economic difficulties, this is total fantasy. As a cure for rapidly growing joblessness, a massive destruction of wealth, a deepening worldwide recession, this is perhaps the greatest non sequitur ever foisted upon the American people.

My sense is that BO and company have no intent of any economic improvement. In fact, I strongly suspect that it fits their plans just perfectly to have the nation descend into the economic abyss and remove every safety catch they possibly can. While the MSM brayed about the "Bush attack on constitutional rights", nobody anybody knew was ever affected at all -- the "constitutional crisis" was completely fabricated.

Now OTOH, the MSM is generally ecstatic, but if one looks closely, BO is in fact deepening the ability to do domestic surveillance and HR 645, to create large camps where civilians can be herded to for "their protection" has already been proposed in congress. Naturally, since the MSM has complete trust in BO, there are no stories that the majority of the people are hearing that would let people be aware that such camps COULD be used as "concentration camps". BO is good, BO is a savior -- he is responsible for good things, anything bad that happens is due to BUSH and "failed right wing policies" -- pay no attention to the market, business results or taxes. The every watchful BO will make us all unified and happy -- heil BO!

And yet with our financial house on fire, Obama makes clear both in his speech and his budget that the essence of his presidency will be the transformation of health care, education and energy. Four months after winning the election, six weeks after his swearing in, Obama has yet to unveil a plan to deal with the banking crisis.

What's going on? "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," said Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. "This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before."

As Lenin said, "The Worse The Better"!!! The far left of course constantly harped on how Bush was "using 9-11 to manufacture a crisis and take people's rights". The far left even argued that "9-11 was an inside job". Now we have markets falling like rocks, unemployment rising like a moon rocket, and BO's own chief of staff saying that "the crisis is an opportunity". Meanwhile, they admit (and take gleefull credit for) orchestrating this "Rush Limbagh is the leader of the Republican party" gambit. BUT, the PROBLEM with the Busy administration was that they "played political games" -- or at least so the MSM and the Democrats said. So what does one call a staged fight with Rush??

Why Doesn't MSM Find BO Stupid?

Political Punch: Bullish Obama Suggests Nation Should Buy! Buy!

"What you're now seeing is ... profit and earning ratios are starting
to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if
you've got a long-term perspective on it," the president said on a day
that trading continued to hover under 7,000.

But wait, it is PRICE / Earnings ratio! He said the wrong thing! Doesn't that mean he is STUPID? I'm sure it would have with Bush, but not with BO. I wonder why that is?

Ok, forget what may be a slip of the tongue (I'm CERTAIN that the media would have taken that tack with Bush!). How about "substance"?

Obama said he wasn't focused on "the day-to-day gyrations of the stock
market, but the long-term ability for the United States and the entire
world economy to regain its footing." he compared the Dow Jones
Industrial Average to a daily tracking poll in politics. "You know, it
bobs up and down day to day," he said. "And if you spend all your time
worrying about that, then you're probably going to get the long-term
strategy wrong."

Uh, a "tracking poll"? Where people are just randomly sampled over the phone? Hmm -- actually, the market is people RISKING THEIR LIFE SAVINNGS Mr Financial Fool in Chief!! BTW, I'm betting that this WH pays just as much attention to "daily tracking polls" as any other has. If he had ANY experience in business and investing, he would CERTAINLY realize that:

1. The Market looks primarily SHORT TERM -- 6 months or so. The wild drop since Sept '08 is Business and Investors giving HIM a solid vote of "NO CONFIDENCE"!!!
2. The Market looks only forward -- like we all ought to do in life, the Market plays from today forward. Yesterday is past history. Today and expectations for tomorrow are what matter!
   
3. He apparently throws TRILLIONS of TAXPAYERS dollars into the wind with no thought of where they will land, but investors are using THEIR OWN MONEY, and they tend to place their bets where they believe they will get a payoff.

Had Bush said anything this foolish and dismissive of the half of the population that saves and invests, the fallout in the press would have been devastating. BO gets a pass!! That is what is called an "unbiased media"!

A Black Woman's Election View

Link to the Anne Wortham text

Just read it, I have nothing to add. Brilliant, fearless, inspiring. As long as there are people like this woman, hope will NEVER die!

Fellow Americans,

Please know: I am black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul’s name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a black president to love the ideal of America.

I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival – all that I know about the history of the United States of America, all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the "change" that Obama asserts has come to America. Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend. I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared "progressive" whites who voted for him because he doesn’t look like them. I would have to be wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and will fill posts in his administration – political intellectuals like my former colleagues at the Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

I would have to believe that "fairness" is equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that man who asks me to "go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice" is speaking in my interest. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the "bottom up," and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.

Finally, Americans, I would have to erase from my consciousness the scene of 125,000 screaming, crying, cheering people in Grant Park, Chicago irrationally chanting "Yes We Can!" Finally, I would have to wipe all memory of all the times I have heard politicians, pundits, journalists, editorialists, bloggers and intellectuals declare that capitalism is dead – and no one, including especially Alan Greenspan, objected to their assumption that the particular version of the anti-capitalistic mentality that they want to replace with their own version of anti-capitalism is anything remotely equivalent to capitalism.

So you have made history, Americans. You and your children have elected a black man to the office of the president of the United States, the wounded giant of the world. The battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda is over – and that Fonda won. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern must be very happy men. Jimmie Carter, too. And the Kennedys have at last gotten their Kennedy look-a-like. The self-righteous welfare statists in the suburbs can feel warm moments of satisfaction for having elected a black person. So, toast yourselves: 60s countercultural radicals, 80s yuppies and 90s bourgeois bohemians. Toast yourselves, Black America. Shout your glee Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Duke, Stanford, and Berkeley. You have elected not an individual who is qualified to be president, but a black man who, like the pragmatist Franklin Roosevelt, promises to – Do Something! You now have someone who has picked up the baton of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. But you have also foolishly traded your freedom and mine – what little there is left – for the chance to feel good. There is nothing in me that can share your happy obliviousness.

Even The Left Gets a Whiff of BO?

Team Obama’s Petty Limbaugh Strategy :: Swampland - TIME.com

Gee, even Time notices that BO's politics is "same old, same old", even as much as having the same folks involved -- Carvelle and Begalla for example.

So why are we talking about Rush? According to Martin, the Rush
"controversy" began as an idea last fall that followed a poll taken by
Stanley Greenberg, who owns the house where White House Chief of Staff
Rahm Emanuel stays when he is in Washington. With his old Clinton
Administration colleagues, Paul Begala and James Carville, Greenberg
realized that Limbaugh was deeply unpopular among wide swaths of the
American electorate. So, the strategists figured, why not turn the turn
Republican Party into a Limbaughesque caricature? Limbaugh, a
consummate publicity hound, was only too eager to help. Earlier this
year, he said he hoped Obama "fails," a reasonable claim in context,
given that Limbaugh's entire worldview is constructed around an
opposition to the sorts of policies that Obama has proposed.

But echoed over the "chatter on the cable stations" thanks to Obama
aides, including Emanuel and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs,
Limbaugh's comment took on a whiff of treason. Limbaugh's rapid
comebacks to the White House assault created what economists might call
a "downward spiral" effect. “It's great for us, great for him, great
for the press,” Carville told the Politico, describing the White House
and Limbaugh. “The only people he's not good for are the actual
Republicans in Congress.”

See, that is what a "different kind of politics is" -- nastier, more subversive, and less interested in the good of the nation than BOs own political gain.

Memo to Post: Bush No Longer in Office!

Bush's Secret Dictatorship - White House Watch - Dan Froomkin's Blog on washingtonpost.com

One would think that BO supporting papers would have more important things to do than go looking at old Bush administration memos that they find to be "whiney", and "unconvincing". In case they have missed it, the economy and the markets are in shambles and we are shedding 100's of thousands of jobs a month. Does that seem like a great time for partisan navel gazing and old wounds? Guess it does:

But Bradbury was also making excuses for them. They were afraid, he
wrote: "The opinions addressed herein were issued in the wake of the
atrocities of 9/11, when policymakers, fearing that additional
catastrophic terrorist attacks were imminent, strived to employ all
lawful means to protect the nation." They were rushed, confronting
"novel and complex legal questions in a time of great danger and under
extraordinary time pressure."

No excuse. Not even close.

Good to see that there a "no excuses" for the Bush administration, not even 9/11. One hopes that BO doesn't ever get that type of a test, because I'm not sure we even can envision how abject failure can really be. I'm CERTAIN though that if such comes to pass, the Washington Post will be WAY on the side of "No Excuse for BO"!

BO Exposed

RealClearPolitics - Articles - A Week of Revelation

The "true stripes" are exposed, and we see the mixture of black and white -- a two tone kitty with a white stripe down the back!

But governments do not "invest," they spend. Such spending can be justified or unjustified. It is wealthy individuals, however, who actually invest their capital in job creation. Most have much less capital than they used to. Under the Obama budget, they would have less still. This does not seem to matter in the economic worldview of the Obama budget. Equality is the goal instead of opportunity or economic mobility. And government, in this approach, is more capable of investing national wealth than America's discredited plutocrats -- meaning successful two-income families, entrepreneurs and professionals.

Actually, the real goal is POWER for "The Party" (D)

Obama lied; the economy died

Washington Times - BLANKLEY: Obama lied; the economy died

Very well written, I love this opening, but ignor my little tirade here -- the piece is a MUST READ!

I am trying to capture the spirit of bipartisanship as practiced by the Democratic Party over the last eight years.

What rational person could deny that? The supposed "bipartisan Democrats" used "Bush lied, people died" over and over ad-nauseum. As Blankly points out, Bush didn't lie, he was mistaken. BO clearly uttered "I'm not in favor of larger government" after signing $800 Billion in stimulus, deciding he was going to sign on to $400 Billion from last years Democrats with 9,000 earmarks, and had his $3.6 Trillion largest budget and largest deficit ever by ALL measures ready to roll. To absolutely KNOW one thing and say the other live on national TV talking directly to the nation is CLEARLY "lying to the American People".

When Bush said in the State of the Union of '03 that "The British say that ---", there would have been a "lie" had the British NOT said that -- in fact they DID, **AND** what they said (Saddam was trying to get Yellowcake from Niger) was in fact verified by their own intelligence agency (not ours) to be true.

But, the left was certain that was "impeachable" on the grounds of "lying to the American people". Naturally, since the left is such a bunch of fair minded and impartial people, I'm certain they will be demanding impeachment post haste.

Of course, with the havoc that the Democrat congress and BO have wreaked in just a couple short years, having BO eating off a tin tray would be small consolation for the rest of us eating dog food pizza.

I Come to Bury Reagan

Commentary » Blog Archive » From Thatcherism and Reaganism to . . .

Had BO stated what he obviously intended to do, it is doubtful that he would have been elected.

This is a good summary of the philosophy that BO seeks to repudiate:

The illusion that government can be a universal provider, and yet
society still stay free and prosperous. The illusion that government
can print money, and yet the nation still have sound money. The
illusion that every loss can be covered by a subsidy. The illusion that
we can break the link between reward and effort, and still get the
reward.

Therefore:

• government CAN be a universal provider, ind society will stay free and prosperous
• government CAN print money, yet the nations money remain sound
• losses can be covered by subsidy and "bailout"
• we can break the link between reward and effort -- and still get the reward.
  

Which do you believe? If you voted for BO, you had best believe the latter, because he clearly does!!

Moderate Buyers Remorse

Op-Ed Columnist - A Moderate Manifesto - NYTimes.com

Brooks and his paper, the NYT have been huge BO supporters. Brooks is viewed by the NYT as a "conservative", but as he himself says "he is a moderate" -- which is being very charitable to himself. Essentially he is just less radical than BO, which it turns out is not hard at all to be!

I might wonder what David was smoking that led him to his ideas that somehow what BO said could be trusted -- it has been clear for a long time that BO is a radical lefty intent on "unification" the old fashioned way -- by destroying any other alternative. Now Brooks has seen the error of his ways, but it is far too late and his thinking is far too wishful.

The U.S. has never been a society riven by class resentment. Yet the
Obama budget is predicated on a class divide. The president issued a
read-my-lips pledge that no new burdens will fall on 95 percent of the
American people. All the costs will be borne by the rich and all
benefits redistributed downward.

Welcome to full scale class warfare -- courtesy of BO. It WASN'T riven, but it is now! That ANYONE could have been surprised that this was his agenda all along amazes me.

The U.S. has always had vibrant neighborhood associations. But in its
very first budget, the Obama administration raises the cost of charitable giving. It punishes civic activism and expands state intervention.

Heil BO, comrade! Fascism involves the destruction of the local in favor of the national. Whatever BO calls himself he is a fascist bent on the politicization of all!

Those of us who consider ourselves moderates — moderate-conservative,
in my case — are forced to confront the reality that Barack Obama is not who we thought he was. His words are responsible; his character is inspiring. But his actions betray a transformational liberalism that should put every centrist on notice. As Clive Crook, an Obama admirer, wrote in The Financial Times, the Obama budget “contains no trace of compromise. It makes no gesture, however small, however costless to its larger agenda, of a bipartisan approach to the great questions it
addresses. It is a liberal’s dream of a new New Deal.

One might say "welcome to reality". Sadly, you discovered the truth too late and BO and his minions have two full years to try to make it impossible for those that care about the America of the Consitution to have any future chance -- a couple of the battles to come are "The Fairness Doctrine", which will be used to silence opposition on the right, and massive gun control and registration which will be used to clear away any last hope that the population can rise up and check the destruction of the country.

BO Economy

Our Troubled Economy Is a Response to Barack Obama's Policies - WSJ.com

The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget
last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a
declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy.
Health-care stocks have dived on fears of new government mandates and
price controls. Private lenders to students have been told they're no
longer wanted. Anyone who uses carbon energy has been warned to expect
a huge tax increase from cap and trade. And every risk-taker and
investor now knows that another tax increase will slam the economy in
2011, unless Mr. Obama lets Speaker Nancy Pelosi impose one even
earlier.

Surprise surprise, being a failed Community Organizer from the political cesspool of Chicago isn't good job training for running the worlds largest economy. Well, duh!!!