Today's lies

Today President Obama told a whopper in his weekly radio address:

Now, I realize that when we passed this Recovery Act, there were those who felt that doing nothing was somehow an answer. Today, some of those same critics are already judging the effort a failure although they have yet to offer a plausible alternative.

This is an outright lie. Both Republicans and at least one Democrat in to House offered plausible alternatives at the time. None were allowed to come to the floor for a vote.

Whether the stimulus eventually "works" or not has yet to be seen. Regardless, a president of the United States glibly lying to distract and confuse should not go without a response.



Two other Obama flip flops of note:

Obama flip flops on needle exchange funding.

Greenpeace protests Obama's duplicity by putting him on Mt. Rushmore.

The point of this post is not to advocate for Obama's current or previous statements or positions. It is the point out, again, what many of us knew all along: Obama is a fraud.

Guest Post: New Deal v. New Pork - Who's in charge?

By Rentarainbow


Obama is flying around bragging that he has gotten a bill passed that spends more money than President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spent in the same amount of time.

Oh goody.

Obama is spending more money.


Yippee.



But what is he BUYING with that money?

Is Obama buying "recovery"?

Is Obama buying jobs?

Or is Obama buying votes for his 2012 re-election?

Just by way of comparison, here's a timeline of FDR's first 100 days as president (in 1933) when the Great Depression had already been raging for a few years; thousands of banks had closed, stocks had lost most of their value, and there was 25% to 30% unemployment, not even counting women who were not considered part of the workforce. Millions were homeless; they had lost their homes and were moving in with relatives and friends. One third of the nation was ill-fed and ill-clothed.

FDR worked aggressively and creatively to stabilize the banks, feed the hungry, provide jobs for the jobless, and protect farmers and homeowners from foreclosure.

(P.S. FDR's recovery initiatives worked. We don't know if Obama's pork-laden "stimulus" bill will create recovery and new jobs, or if it will sink us further into "catastrophe.")

And, by the way, it might be useful to know WHO is overseeing the spending of this close-to-one-trillion dollars in "stimulus" money. Is anyone?

Who?

Tell me who.

Who is in charge of seeing that the $787 billion in this "stimulus" bill and the $78 billion in Obama's mortgage "bailout" are not wasted and/or not going to the very people who drove us into this economic 'quicksand'? (Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have "recovered" quickly. Those 2 foxes not only gets to guard the "housing" hen house - they get the deed, the keys, and the run of the place. )

Will these Obama expenditures be "stimulative," or will they be just so much 'quicksand' that swallows more and more of our tax dollars?

Saturday Morning Post

Vision without action is a daydream.
Action without vision is a nightmare.

Japanese Proverb.

Krugman: Mr. Obama has to be stronger looking forward. Otherwise, the verdict on this crisis might be that no, we can't (Yes, I added the "bold".)

The zombie like repetition of "Yes, We Can" is going to haunt like "Mission Accomplished" before all this is over.

Krugman goes after everyone in his piece called Failure to Rise.

So far the Obama administration's response to the economic crisis is all too reminiscent of Japan in the 1990s

I return to my theme here of late - that this foolish obsession with "reaching across the aisle" - that no doubt goes to Obama's image of himself as a "healer" or some such nonsense - is his Achilles heal. Conservatives never worry about reaching across any aisles - this is a Democratic affliction. On 1/20/09 Obama had a rare opportunity in American politics: A chance to change the game completely. Reagan had this chance and he seized it. Obama fumbled. In war, during natural disasters, and with overriding social concerns, coming together is a good thing. In matters of policy - conviction and the opposing world views of the battling sides should fight it out. I am a free market ideologue when it comes to ideas. Let the best ones win.

Half ass snarking 2 weeks late is no way to lead.

Actually, let me step back and say this more clearly: The game is changing regardless. Obama had the chance to get ahead of the curve - and he chose to punt to Democratic hacks, allowing the defeated party to rise from the grave in 3 days - more or less. This, in turn, is the direct result of being inexperienced.

The game is changing. I have no idea exactly where we are heading. I sense ( I write I sense so much because I am, in fact, working with my hunches here. I see no benefit in pretending otherwise.) we are now experiencing the ugly backside of globalization and the results of allowing our nation to become overextended. The largest entitlement all Americans have enjoyed in the last 30 years is living beyond our means with no consequences.

That is until the artfully timed financial cave in of late 2008. We sold our souls for cheap coffee makers, flat screen TVs and SUVs.

Lest anyone think I am losing my perspective on Obama let me add: I believe Obama was chosen to protect the elites as much as possible as we slowly sink. His skill set has been honed for this job since - at least - his lost year in Pakistan.

I sometimes write about him as if I believe he would ever confront the elites who brought him. I don't. He's an errand boy, sent by mafia dons. I know this. Pretending we live in a democracy is the only out small democrats have left, short of rebellion. We pretend we have a say and the politicians pretend to listen to us - to paraphrase the Soviet era's "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us."

Nevertheless, A population that believes it has power - sometimes, when pushed, still seizes it. The final power is always with the people. Even the smug elites understand this.

Part of BHO's job is to pretend we can return to the time of living beyond our means with no consequences. Or as Cheney, protector of the elites in the last administration put it: The American way of life is not negotiable. Oh yes it is, Dick. It is being renegotiated right now.

America and the world is being forcibly downsized. Obama's job is to engineer a controlled demolition.

As for my "sense" about the downside of globalization and America and the West's overreach I direct you here and here for backup.

More on the vision thing

Since I have very little love and absolutely no trust in Obama it may seem odd that I am giving advice in this post. So be it. It is an odd time to be in this country and getting odder by the minute.

Obama blew the first two weeks of his presidency by trying to play the "moderate" with the Right. He's done himself real damage. Damage I believe will be ongoing. Barring an immediate national crisis (which will no doubt come soon enough) the first two weeks of this administration will have been the most important this year.

BHO made the mistake modern Democratic Presidents always make: he ran from the Left, tried making nice with the GOP, and therefore played directly into their hands.

Let me interject here forcefully that I do not trust either party and am deeply ambivalent about the stimulus bill. This post is about power and politics - not economics.

By trying to get some of the GOP on board he's degraded his own bill. He did not hit the ground running, he hit it backslapping. He's weakened his bill, tried to make it bipartisan, and yet - should it not have a quick effect - the fault will stand land on his desk. Politically, it is a no win situation for Obama and he created it by not claiming and owning a core vision, then taking that vision to a Congress that by all rights should have been his to steamroll. At least it was on January 20th.

The blame will not be spread around if his weakened bill fails to produce a turnaround quickly. He'll get it. The GOP played on his worst character defect, the compulsive need to be seen as a unifier, then weakened the bill and along the way found they their sea legs again - almost immediately after suffering a severe defeat. The Right is on the verge of the quickest resurgence imaginable after last November's debacle.

Not only did he allow the GOP room to grab the megaphone, he handed over the House's version to Pelosi - who apparently allowed it to be turned into to a cavalcade of pork. The trouble here is not the pork, one man's pork is another's cash flow - and it is a spending bill after all. The trouble is that the bill has no centering idea. It is a mess. There is no vision. The bill is not a well considered meal plan as much as it is a carb laden buffet. The obvious reason: Neither Obama or Pelosi have any vision.

The belief in "bipartisanship" is no longer operative. The world views of liberals and conservatives are at odds on the most basic level. Ignoring this is not helpful or healthy. It is foolish. On January 20th, Obama needed to announce in very certain terms "This is the way it is going to be." Explained his vision, then acted on it. ( I realize the last sentence presumes that Obama had a vision past winning - which he did not.) On January 20th, 1981 Reagan intoned "Government cannot solve our problems. Government is the problem." Like it or not, that, my friends, is a vision for a nation.

On January 20th, 2008, Obama said: Can't we all just get along? The answer is usually NO. It defies logic and history to think otherwise. It is why we have elections every four years, and not civil wars. Thank God. One side wins. There is no point in ignoring that obvious truth.

He did not win by a landslide. He did win a mandate. But mandates are useless without a vision.

Paul Krugman, the liberal economist, understands the mistake Obama has made on the stimulus bill. Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh.

Obama did finally go on the offensive last night in a speech to Democrats. He may recover his groove. Still, he's frittered away time and political capital, given the Right new life, and damaged his own standing by trying to play patty cake with people who want him to fail. Yes, they do. THEY WANT HIM TO FAIL. Don't think for a second that power brokers in either party want anything past the next victory. Except in war, those days are long gone in this country.

However this messy stimulus bill turns out - it is his. He owns it. A true leader - in the position he was in on January 20th-would have gotten everything he wanted. Not a steaming pile of misguided half measures.