Do The Math

Let's see... the population of the USA is 306M, and 500M jobs a month are lost. That means everyone in this country loses his job every month... and some unlucky bastards lose more than one job every month.

Wow. America sucks.

Shrumming Down America

Damn! Seems like all of the Clintonoid retreads are crawling out from under their rocks. This pearl of wisdom from Robert Shrumm:

Attack of the Zombie Republicans

So after all the bipartisan ambience generated by the White House, the stimulus package passed the House of Representatives without a single Republican vote. The President says he’ll win over some Republicans in the Senate, but Arizona Republican John Kyl claims GOP support there is already “eroding.”

They won’t admit it, but like the de facto leader of their party, Rush Limbaugh, Republicans want the President to “fail.” Their arguments—if one can dignify them as such—are by turns petty, dishonest or ignorant, ahistorical and ugly.

Listen up, folks. Methinks Shrumm is on to something, and no one could possibly know better -- after all, his ilk wrote the book when it comes to pettiness, dishonesty, ignorance, and... um, ahistorical-ness? And let's not even talk ugly.

The pettiest point was their complaint about the modest funding for birth control in the original version of the House stimulus bill. Heaven forbid—or at least Pat Robertson does—that the poor would have access to family planning. So at the President’s request, the provision was removed; the funding will come later in a different piece of legislation.

Yeah, well, I'm no Pat Robertson, especially when it comes to the baby-killing issue -- in fact, I'm all for any program which prevents Liberal assholes from breeding. But it takes a special kind of fuckwit to keep a straight face while explaining to me why birth control should be part of a stimulus bill. Will this bill require taxpayer-funded condoms to be "ribbed... for her pleasure"? Is that the kind of stimulus we're talking about? For Christ's sake...

At least their quick, cheap hit on contraception lacked the intellectual slovenliness of their other objections. Once and future presidential candidate Mitt Romney told the GOP House retreat that the size of the recovery package threatened to set off hyperinflation. Either he was intentionally deceptive or, like George W. Bush, he slept through economics classes at Harvard Business School.

Gee. How non-petty is that? You're sooooo fucking clever, Shrumm. My knee hurts from the slapping. As for the intellectual slovenliness of the Republican's (and my) objection, I ask this: if you're so in favor of public funding of contraception, why are you hiding the provision for it in a stimulus bill? Why not introduce legislation specifically for that program? Face it -- you're afraid the American public will oppose it, so you do what duplicitous DC cowards always do: you quielty slip it in some other legislation and hope no one notices. Well, someone noticed this time. Too fucking bad. If there was any public support for your free government rubbers program it would still be in the bill. But there's not, so you blame... the Republicans? Tell me about intellectual slovenliness sometime.

The danger now is not inflation, but a descent into deflation. An economy with a paralyzed private sector needs public spending to create demand, production, and jobs.

But spending won’t work, according to the conservative oppositionists. Look at the New Deal, they say, it failed! This Republican fiction assumes that in 1936 Americans suffered from mass delusion as they reelected FDR in a huge landslide. Apparently voters hadn’t noticed his conspicuous failure in office.

In fact, as I’ve pointed out before, from 1933 through 1937, unemployment declined year on year in what was then the largest period of uninterrupted growth in American history; the Dow-Jones Industrial average rose nearly 400 percent. The New Deal only faltered afterwards, in 1938, as the President prematurely moved toward a balanced budget with less stimulative spending—precisely the course the Romneys, Kyls and Republican ideologues now demand.

Forgive my ugly, ignorant ahistorical-ness, but if government spending results in economic strength, after eight long years of beltway Republicans spending our money like, well, like Democrats, by Shrumm's so-called logic this should already be the strongest economy in world history. Maybe I'm missing something; perhaps economic prosperity only occurs when we give billions of dollars worth of condoms to ACORN, or something like that.

And on and on it goes... until Shrumm gets to (what I assume is) his point:

In light of all this, I’m not in as bipartisan a mood these days as President Obama. But I think he really means it when he says he wants to be. He doesn’t lose his temper so I’ll bet he keeps trying. In the end, he’ll agree to some additional changes in the stimulus and it will pass the Senate too—with or without substantial Republican support. And if Obama’s extended hand is met by a Republican clenched fist, the President will only strengthen his hand with the American people—while Republicans further weaken theirs.

Let's talk about extended hands. Exactly how much hand-extending, bipartisanship and compromise occurred on his side of the aisle during the past 8 years?

Just 27 percent of Americans gave the GOP a favorable rating in December. That’s almost a Bush league low, but they can go down from there—and seem determined to do so.

How much lower? I dunno... how about 9% -- you know, the approval rating of the Democrat-controlled congress?

They even called a press conference to charge that the stimulus bill might aid illegal immigrants. Why pass up an opportunity for more of the Hispanic-bashing that cost them so dearly in the last campaign?

Alas, the mandatory charge of racism. That should make the Republicans cave in. Thankfully, I'm not a Republican.

Right now, Republicans are out of ideas, offering little more than resentment and right wing talking points. Maybe Frum can come up with a substantive agenda for them. Or maybe Republicans are just brain dead. In that case, the voters will surely put more of them out of their misery in 2010 and 2012.

Well, he's right about one thing: Republicans are out of ideas. At least good ideas. If the best they can do is offer up tired, washed-up, career beltway pimps like John McCain, they can look forward to spending the rest of their miserable lives in the minority.

And what, pray tell, is the Democrat party's advice to Republicans? Stop listening to Rush Limbaugh. God forbid they might pick up a few ideas.

Sayonara, Douchebag.

And don't come back:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination on Tuesday to be President Barack Obama's Health and Human Services secretary, dealing potential blows to both speedy health care reform and Obama's hopes for a smoother start as president.

"Now we must move forward," Obama said in a written statement accepting "with sadness and regret" Daschle's surprise request to be removed from consideration. A day earlier, Obama had said he "absolutely" stood by Daschle in the face of problems over back taxes and potential conflicts of interest.

Indeed, let's move forward:

NBC News has learned that the president's choice for "chief performance officer" -- technically a deputy OMB director post -- could end up having to withdraw over a number of issues, including tax problems. The withdrawal of Nancy Killefer could happen as soon as today. So far the White House has no comment on the situation.

No, I wouldn't expect them to comment. But I have a comment -- actually a question: Are we now allowed to question their patriotism?

The Real Bush Legacy

Occasionally I uncover a sound, reasoned evaluation of the Bush Presidency. I don't pretend that history's verdict of George W. Bush has yet been rendered, nor can it be during the lifetime of anyone reading this today, in 2009. I've always argued that if your grandparents were alive during the time of the subject in question, you can't call your opinions and commentary "history" because not enough time has passed for events to be put into historical perspective, without bias and subjectivity creeping into your evaluation. That doesn't stop some from trying to write the history books days or weeks after an event occurs -- or, oddly, even before the event. Witness the media mumbling about Obama's "historic" Presidency, before he was even inaugurated! Seems all Obama had to do to make history was get elected. But I digress... this is not about Obama (for a change).

How Bad Was Bush for the World, Really? is a 2-part piece on Bush by Nicholas Guariglia on Pajamas Media. I recommend it to all students of foreign policy, including those (like me) who are on the fence about Bush's legacy. Summary follows, but don't miss the entire thing (Parts One and Two):

President Bush had plenty of foreign policy failures and oversights. Mexico has become the Wild West incarnate; drug lords and militias rule the streets. Our border with the Mexicans remains porous. Overseas, the Russians shifted in the direction of autocracy on Bush’s watch. The North Koreans nuclearized their arsenal. The Iranian problem has been left unaddressed. Bush was at many times incompetent — and at all times inarticulate and incapable of explaining himself or his views. Yes, in retrospect, Senator McCain might have been the better candidate in 2000. All this and more is true.

But to claim Bush was a foreign policy disaster on some unprecedented level is simply untrue. It is an anti-academic accusation and entirely inaccurate, despite what feisty foreign op-eds, YouTube hate videos, late-night wisecracks, and nightclub one-liners would have you believe. President Bush, in fact, did much good internationally.

President Obama has said we must defend ourselves and not undermine our ideals at the same time — a critique of the Bush era, implying his predecessor thought otherwise. But this is a fundamental misunderstanding of everything President Bush’s foreign policy was. Not only could we simultaneously uphold our ideals and protect ourselves, Bush believed, but we must also promote those ideals in order to protect ourselves. This was, in effect, the Bush Doctrine: that “the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.”

George Bush made the promotion of democratic principles the cornerstone of American foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East. While this has been our traditional role throughout history, we have at times strayed away from this democratic calling, especially in the Mideast. Bush changed that with an emphatic defense of Arab liberty. He also tackled HIV/AIDS and African poverty, Latin American narcotics, the Asian sex slave trade, and Islamist state sponsorship of terrorism unlike any leader we have ever had. Oh, and lest we forget, his administration prevented another 9/11 — a feather in the cap that was thought to be impossible on the morning of September 12, 2001.

Despite what you may feel about George W. Bush, this is not a record to scoff at.

No, not hardly. Especially not if your political ilk's Goliath of international affairs is Jimmy Carter.

I think on balance Bush got it right. He saw the big picture, even though he missed some of the details. I think his Christian faith (for which he has been so maligned by his enemies) clouded his judgment and led him to try to win a war without killing innocent people -- a noble effort, but against the grain of history. Never has an enemy been defeated without being defeated so decisively that the people -- not merely the combatants -- lose the will to fight. (Well, except for Fwance; the Fwench lose their will to fight and surrender without firing a shot in defense of their homeland. But that's another story...) As Japan and Germany learned in the previous century, it is better to be at peace with America than at war. There was a time for compassion, and we delivered it by airlift and boatload, but not until after our enemies' will to fight was as thoroughly crushed as their armies, navies and cities.

A war doesn't end until both sides agree that it has ended, and the surest way to make sure a war has really ended is to flatten the enemy so hard that they never again think to take up arms against America or their neighbors. When our politicians promise to "end the war" by bringing home the troops, it would be nice if they could at least get the same concession from the Jihadists who will undoubtedly use the time out to rearm and regroup. Ask Israel how well it works every time they unilaterally "end" their war with the Islamists.

The classic formula of winning wars by crushing the enemy worked well for every great war in history, up to and including World War II. Somehow after 1945, however, it was decided that ending a war was a more important objective than defeating an enemy. Perhaps some believe it's the same thing; it is not, just as peace is not the same thing as freedom. Following World War II, war as we knew it was replaced by a series of limp-wristed "peace keeping" missions that, in the end, always concluded with a "deal" that left a tyrant (if not several of them) in power to rule over an oppressed population. North Korea, Southeast Asia, Gulf War I -- these are just the big wars, the ones the United States led. We won't mention all those UN peacekeeping successes such as Darfur, Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia (pre-NATO), Srebrenica... all bustling democracies now. Not.

War aside, I think Guariglia makes a strong case that Bush did an above average job on foreign policy. If the Iraq war never happened, would the left be any less displeased with Bush? I doubt it; just as the history of Obama has already been written, I believe it was already decided by the pinhead "intellectuals" that the Bush presidency was an abject failure long before he took office. Coupled with an eight year media and pop-culture campaign to promulgate the idea that "Bush failed" among the ignorant and uninformed, without actually backing up such a statement with facts, it will be difficult to change many minds for at least two generations.

This all gets me thinking about the worn-out mantra of the left, about how Bush "squandered he world's good will after 9/11" and how "the international community" holds (or formerly held, for those 8 dark years) America in contempt for whatever imagined greivance. I especially find rich the assertions by leftoids that it's once again cool to tell Euroweenies that you're American.

My general rules of thumb are:

1. If you're embarrassed to tell others you're American when you travel abroad because of who we elect, you can go fuck yourself.
2. If you're not American, and you dislike my country because of who we elect, you can go fuck yourself.

I hope that's nuanced enough for Euroweenies and American leftoids to understand. If not, try the ever so eloquent Ms. Lucas for a more verbose explanation:

Don’t get me wrong, of course I’m glad that English people may be less likely to accuse me personally of prosecuting the Iraq war no matter how incredibly “enlightened” and “accurate” that accusation may or may not be, but what pisses me off is how grateful all these expats sound, how relieved they are they can finally stop pretending they’re Canadian. I’m not grateful; frankly I profoundly resent the implication that my own personal worth has anything whatsoever to do with who half the American voters chose.

I can’t help but imagine how this sort of thing would play were the tables turned. Such as if Venezuela finally got rid of that little pig monkey Chavez and suddenly all the Venezuelan papers had gushing, swooning articles about how Venezuelans living in America no longer have to be ashamed of themselves because NOW, Americans are treating them nice because their home country got a new leader. What the fuck? Does anyone out there know Venezuelans whom you hold personally responsible for Chavez? Do you treat those Venezuelans poorly because you don’t care for Hugo Chavez? If so, you’re an asshole. Just like all the Europeans mentioned in that article up there are assholes.

Frankly, when I was in Ireland and the UK in 2004, at the height of the Iraq war, I had no problem telling people where I was from. To be honest, the only people who brought it up were a few locals at a pub, and they were pretty damn supportive of the USA. They didn't ask me about the war; they asked me what it was like to be near Ground Zero on 9/11, and got a vivid description of the smell of burning steel and flesh that we in the NYC metro area were treated to for weeks after 9/11. Things got pretty fucking quiet for a while.

Frankly, I think the Euroweenies vilify and scowl at America for the same reason the American Left assaults Christianity: because they know that no harm will come to them. If the "European street" was a fraction as vocal about radical Islam, there would be bloody repercussions, so they limit their wrath and aim it West because, well, it's safe. That they do this while Europe is slowly rotting away from the inside with Islamist cancer, well... let's just wait and see who Europe calls in a decade or two when they need help again.

In the meantime, they won't have Bush to kick around anymore.

New Heretic Joins the Ranks of Evil Climate Traitors

Infidel alert:

James Hansen’s Former NASA Supervisor Declares Himself a Skeptic - Says Hansen "Embarrassed NASA"

Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fears soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled.” Theon joins the rapidly growing ranks of international scientists abandoning the promotion of anthropogenic global warming fears.

“I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man-made,” Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. “I was, in effect, Hansen's supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results. I did not have the authority to give him his annual performance evaluation,” Theon, the former Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program at NASA Headquarters and former Chief of the Atmospheric Dynamics & Radiation Branch explained.

“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA's official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind's effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote.

This Theon character is merely the latest so-called scientist to blaspheme against the Church of Global Warming Climate Change. But he's not a celebrity or a politician, so he mustn't be taken seriously; one need only take a furtive glance at his resume to rightfully dismiss him as an uninformed stooge:

Education: B.S. Aero. Engr. (1953-57); Aerodynamicist, Douglas Aircraft Co. (1957-58); As USAF Reserve Officer (1958-60),B.S. Meteorology (1959); Served as Weather Officer 1959-60; M.S, Meteorology (1960-62); NASA Research Scientist, Goddard Space Flight Ctr. (1962-74); Head Meteorology Branch, GSFC (1974-76); Asst. Chief, Lab. for Atmos. Sciences, GSFC (1977-78); Program Scientist, NASA Global Weather Research Program, NASA Hq. (1978-82); Chief, Atmospheric Dynamics & Radiation Branch NASA Hq., (1982-91); Ph.D., Engr. Science & Mech.: course of study and dissertation in atmos. science (1983-85); Chief, Atmospheric Dynamics, Radiation, & Hydrology Branch, NASA Hq. (1991-93); Chief, Climate Processes Research Program, NASA Hq. (1993-94); Senior Scientist, Mission to Planet Earth Office, NASA Hq. (1994-95); Science Consultant, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (1995-99); Science Consultant Orbital Sciences Corp. (1996-97) and NASA Jet Propulsion Lab., (1997-99).

See? Nothing at all to suggest he's a real scientist. In addition, further investigation into Theon's private life has uncovered an embarrassing link to the oil industry that he failed to disclose at his Senate hearing: VLWH has learned that Theon drives an automobile, and has been observed filling it with gasoline, a petroleum byproduct. This clearly proves he can't be trusted.

(h/t: Power Line, Watts, EPW.)

Good News for Daschle and Geithner

Quote of the Day

“Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter. ” Sen. Tom Daschle, Congressional Record, May 7, 1998, p. S4507.

(h/t: NRO, via Cold Fury, Malkin, et al.)

Barry, you're doing a heck of a job.

From Power Line:

Many on the web--but no one in the mainstream media--have commented on the fact that Obama has not even pretended to do anything about the massive ice storm that has disabled much of Kentucky and neighboring states. It took days for FEMA to swing into action. Why is that not a scandal? Days went by before Kentucky's governor called out the National Guard. Why did no one blame Obama for failing to call out the Guard sooner? Probably because he lacks the constitutional power to do so; but the Constitution hasn't changed since 2005.

Doesn't matter. Katrina -- and most likely this ice storm in Kentucky, too -- is Bush's fault. Don't believe me? Then you're a racist. 'Cause Obama's in charge now, and things are different. It says so right there on his White House web site:

President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur.

President Obama swiftly responded to Hurricane Katrina. Citing the Bush Administration's "unconscionable ineptitude" in responding to Hurricane Katrina, then-Senator Obama introduced legislation requiring disaster planners to take into account the specific needs of low-income hurricane victims. Obama visited thousands of Hurricane survivors in the Houston Convention Center and later took three more trips to the region. He worked with members of the Congressional Black Caucus to introduce legislation to address the immediate income, employment, business, and housing needs of Gulf Coast communities.

President Barack Obama will partner with the people of the Gulf Coast to rebuild now, stronger than ever.

Didn't take long for us to marvel at the Clean-and-Articulate One's unconscionable ineptitude mad disaster response skillz. From Insurance Journal:

Local officials were growing angry with what they said was a lack of help from the state and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In Grayson County, about 80 miles southwest of Louisville, Emergency Management Director Randell Smith said the 25 National Guardsmen who have responded have no chain saws to clear fallen trees.

"We've got people out in some areas we haven't even visited yet,'' Smith said. "We don't even know that they're alive.''

Smith said FEMA has been a no-show so far.

"I'm not saying we can't handle it; we'll handle it,'' Smith said. "But it would have made life a lot easier'' if FEMA had reached the county sooner, he said.

Yeah. Heck of a job, Savior. By the way.... Kentucky? They voted 58% for McCain, and they're 90% white. So fuck them! I mean, it's all about race, isn't it? When a natural disaster hits white Republican rednecks, well... I guess they can just cling to their guns and religion, and deal with it themselves. Don't bother Obama, he busy rebuilding Chocolate City.

HopeChange™, crackers!

Mo' better coverage of this by Anchoress.

Another 'Innocent Mistake'

Didn't we bury this asshole already? Like, in 2004?

Report: Daschle Delayed Tax Revelation

Former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle waited nearly a month after being nominated to be secretary of health and human services before informing President Obama that he had not paid years of back taxes, the Washington Post reports.

On Jan. 2, Daschle paid $140,000 in back taxes and interest to the U.S. Treasury and about two days later informed the White House and the Senate Finance Committee, the White House confirmed to the Post.

Obama's transition team discovered in December that $15,000 of the $276,000 in charitable contributions claimed by Daschle lacked proper documentation. But Daschle waited until after amended returns were filed before he mentioned the larger tax liability.

Daschle spokeswoman Jenny Backus said he had known since June 208 that his luxury car and driver provided by wealthy Democratic donor, longtime friend and business associate Leo Hindery might be taxable, but never expected the amount to be such a "jaw-dropping" sum and "thought it was being taken care of" by his accountant.

Hindery founded InterMedia Partners, a private equity firm, in 1988. Daschle was paid $1 million annually for his consulting services, the Senate Finance Committee said.

Daschle had an unreported consulting income of $88,333, in 2007.

Bloomberg reported that Backus said Daschle was "embarrassed and disappointed" by what had occurred.

"Senator Daschle is embarrassed and disappointed by these errors," Backus said. "He apologized for his part in these errors and expressed his deep regret that the committee had to devote time to them."

"Errors?" Daschle's "errors" makes Geithner's $34,000 "innocent mistake" look downright amateurish by comparison.

But we shouldnt be so hard on them. From a layman's perspective, I'd say they were just playing by the rules. You know, the ones that elitists have set for themselves, above and apart from the rules you and I must live by. A former Queen once said, "We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes." Certainly Daschle and Geithner are Big People, no? They deserve our respect, not simple-minded judgement. Elitists provide a valuable service to America -- after all, without them, who would tell us what to do and how to behave?

'Tis a shame, though... most of us are not Big People. Remember Joe the Plumber? He's classic Little People. After his personal government records were illegally leaked to the media by an Obamunist true-believer, he was "outed" as a tax cheat and skewered by the leftoids for failing to pay (are you sitting down?) a whopping total of $1,182.92 in back taxes -- that's eleven HUNDRED! With an "H"!!! -- an amount which I doubt would pay a single day's interest on Daschle's debt to the IRS.

We've learned a valuable lesson here: If you're going to cheat on your taxes, do it big. A $1,200 debt gets you vilified by leftoid hacks; $34,000 in tax evasion lets you run the Treasury; and $140,000 buys you the Health and Human Services Dept. Such a deal!

HopeChange™, fellow Little People.

BREAKING NEWS: Dissent No Longer Patriotic

My, how times have Changed™.

While Conservatives endured eight years of venom and vitriol spewed at the erstwhile President Bush by Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Rosie O'Donnell, and the gaggle of leftoid hack Hollywood "entertainers" -- including, but hardly limited to, all sorts of idiotic charges that Bush was trying to stifle free speech (this, while incessantly whining about Bush for two full terms...) -- the New Bizarro-World Order is here, and with it our patriotic duty to blindly and unconditionally support our new clean-and-articulate Savior-President no matter how much his policies of HopeChange™ may turn our stomachs. Yes, the new era of "bipartisanship" is upon us, where we put aside our "petty grievances", shut our fucking pieholes, and do as we're told. This nuBipartisanship is defined as such: Republicans will abandon their core principles, bend over and take one up the ass because, as Dear Leader succinctly puts it, "I won."

Alas, a new standard has been foisted upon us; it is now ordained that any criticism of our new Savior-President is unacceptable, especially to those who for years have proudly proclaimed that "dissent is patriotic." Apparently, the first heretic to be burned at the stake will be Rush Limbaugh. Less than two weeks after his inauguration deification, our Savior-President and his disciples have called out Rush for committing heresy against The Church of Obamunism. Rush's crime: Hoping that Obama fails. In response, our Savior-President has issued a fatwah to Republicans instructing them to "stop listening to Rush" (as if they're going to finally start listening to him now...). As if on cue, the Disciples proffer a petition to "repudiate" the infidel, and the media salvos have have begun.

Well, boo-fucking-hoo. I don't recall Bush ever singling out any of of his vocal media critics by name, ostensibly to silence them. In the formerly rational world, this would have seemed... I don't know, unpresidential? Certainly sophomoric.

Among the acts of support we saw during the Bush years were the useful idiot Cindy Sheehan camped out on Bush's front lawn; movies depicting the assassination of Bush; calls for Bush's daughters to be sent to die in Iraq; and shoes thrown at Bush by some Bathist wingnut. All such displays of "courage" were met with applause from the moonbat left... but, more importantly, they were also met without recrimination by the alleged Fascist dictator. I suppose it's easy to be "courageous" when you know nothing will happen to you, sort of like poking a caged grizzly with a long stick. How brave. Try throwing shoes at your beloved Hugo or Fidel, see how that works out for you.

But back to Rush: He says he hopes Obama fails. So fucking what? So do I. Call me a cynic, but when shrill Leftoids voiced opposition to every initiative presented by Bush -- tax cuts, privatizing Social Security, judicial appointments, liberating millions of Muslims from Islamofascist oppression -- well, for some reason I doubt this opposition was really all in hope that Bush would succeed. Unless, of course, said shrill opposition was in fact merely support carefully couched in that famous Liberal nuance that, as a Conservative and a neo-Texan, I'm too stoopid and narrowminded to comprehend. I don't recall the nonpartisan Speaker-Overlord working to implement Bush's policies just because "he won," nor do I recall Bush instructing Democrats to stop listening to the Daily Kos and MoveON.org.

Would it be prudent, then, to expect Liberals all over America to now scrape those stupid "Dissent Is Patriotic" bumper stickers off their shitty Volvos and Priuses? Or did I miss the clause in the First Amendment that grants the right to free expression solely to moonbat Liberals? Maybe it's in the unabridged version of the Bill of Rights that only the high priests of the Church of Obama are allowed to read.

HopeChange™, you unpatriotic infidels.

Movin' On Up!

First day on the job, and our Articulate and Clean President is already busy bringing about the "renewal" and "reconciliation" he spoke about just a day before in his inaugural address.

From the WhiteHouse.gov web site:

President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur.

President Obama swiftly responded to Hurricane Katrina. Citing the Bush Administration's "unconscionable ineptitude" in responding to Hurricane Katrina, then-Senator Obama introduced legislation requiring disaster planners to take into account the specific needs of low-income hurricane victims. Obama visited thousands of Hurricane survivors in the Houston Convention Center and later took three more trips to the region. He worked with members of the Congressional Black Caucus to introduce legislation to address the immediate income, employment, business, and housing needs of Gulf Coast communities.

President Barack Obama will partner with the people of the Gulf Coast to rebuild now, stronger than ever.

Curiously, there is no mention of any "unconscionable ineptitude" on the part of the Mayor of Chocolate City, or any other of the myriad Democrats one would encounter if one bothered to climb the ladder of responsibility from the Local and State governments before ever reaching the Federal level.

Memo to all Obamunists: Fuck you. For all of Bush's faults, he left office with dignity and class. None of the "O" keys were missing from keyboards, I'll wager. No vandalism or anti-Obama graffiti either. I'm certain that the Bush staff left the White House in far better condition than they found it in January 2001. What a pleasant change from the way you dickless leftoids execute a Presidential transition.

And what in return? It didn't take but a day for you to show us what the next 4 years promise: cheap shots, rhetoric, and venom. So that's how it's going to be? Fine. You set the rules; I'll just play by them. Don't look to me for goodwill when it's clearly a one-way street. Others may pray that your boy president succeeds for the sake of the nation. Not me. I pray that he fails; that his failures are monumental; and that those who elected him (i.e., you) suffer most of all. You keep comparing this Socialist asshole to Lincoln; I'll keep hoping he shares Lincoln's fate. How's that for reconciliation?

But hey... I'm just an angry white racist. Velociman says it with much more eloquence and class than I could ever hope to muster.

Okay. I was giving the man his day, his year, his administration. A faint breeze of circumspection had been wafting across his bow for a couple of weeks. I was going to shut the fuck up and exhibit the class the left has been incapable of showing since 1968. No more.

Fuck him. That dandy, that piebald pimp. And his rat shack wife, who was strolling down Pennsylvania Avenue today incomprehensibly dressed like one of the terra cotta soldiers from the Imperial Tombs of China exhibit. Only with a fatter ass. And snappers that looked like they could chomp through a cocoanut. How often has Obama regretted those marital banns, one wonders?

HopeChange™, you low-rent fucking scumbags.

Ohh... Bamm... Ahhh!

Must. Read.

Boo Fucking Hoo Du Jour

Be still my bleeding heart:

"A whopping 582,000 direct and indirect jobs would be lost in Canada over the next five years if the ailing Big Three US auto makers shut down their Ontario operations, said a study Tuesday.

"If output is reduced by 50 percent, 296,000 jobs would be lost nationally, said the 11-page report prepared for the Ontario Manufacturing Council.

Gee, I wonder how much the Canadian government is kicking in towards the bailout. Oh, it says right here...:

"On Friday, the Canadian and Ontario governments reached a tentative deal for a 3.4-billion Canadian dollar (2.8 billion US) bailout of Chrysler, General Motors and Ford's operations in Ontario province."

Wow, $2.8 billion, out of what? $50 billion? In other words, the Canadians are basically going to contribute bus fare. Gee, thanks.

As always, I've got a better idea -- how about the so-called "Big Three" pick up and move their entire operations to Canada, along with the union bosses who want to continue living high on the hog while milking the US taxpayer to subsidize their lifestyles. Hell, the Canadians are good Socialists, they won't mind footing the bill for the good of the proletariat. Bon voyage, douchebags.

Guess The Party!

Since it's politically acceptable that Obama purchased the White House, others apparently thought it only natural that his prior office be put up for sale:

Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich and his Chief of Staff, John Harris, were arrested today by FBI agents on federal corruption charges alleging that they and others are engaging in ongoing criminal activity: conspiring to obtain personal financial benefits for Blagojevich by leveraging his sole authority to appoint a United States Senator; threatening to withhold substantial state assistance to the Tribune Company in connection with the sale of Wrigley Field to induce the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members sharply critical of Blagojevich; and to obtain campaign contributions in exchange for official actions -- both historically and now in a push before a new state ethics law takes effect January 1, 2009.

Oddly (no, not really...), there's no mention in the CBS article of which political party the Hon. Governor Blagojevich belongs to. So I checked the Chicago Tribune's story, and whatcha' know? No mention there, either. Ditto Sun-Times. Surely the vaunted New York Times, the old gray lady, America's newspaper of record, all the news that's shit to print... surely The Times would tell me, right? No... I must therefore conclude that he is an Independent, like all criminal politicians who are not Republicans.

Ha ha! Just kidding -- he's a DEMOCRAT! Who woulda' thunk that tidbit of information would be neglected in the reporting by certain major newspapers?

Interestingly, I never had to do a Wikipedia search to find out that Ted Stevens was a Republican. Or Larry Craig. Or Vito Fossello. Or Duke Cunningham. Why, I didn't have to read past the second paragraph to find out their party affiliation. Curious, considering there is no media bias.

Thanks, Dumbasses

I wish stupidity was painful.

Bail This.

Gee, sounds like the auto union didn't funnel quite enough cash into a certain Senator's pocket:

WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (Reuters) - A senior Democratic senator raised doubts on Thursday that an attempt to bail out U.S. automakers had enough support to clear Congress this year.

As Republicans amplified their concerns about a bailout, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd raised the biggest red flag for fellow Democrats trying to craft a $25 billion rescue and pass it during a post-election session set to start next week.

"Right now, I don't think there are the votes," Dodd of Connecticut told reporters about prospects in the Senate. "I want to be careful of bringing up a proposition that might fail," he said.

Although Dodd said "we ought to do something" and personally backed using money from the ongoing $700 billion financial services rescue program to help Detroit, he was skeptical that enough Republicans would support a bailout.

Well, too fucking bad, isn't it? Great business plan, Detroit: Run your companies into the shitter, then act surprised that your companies are in the shiter. And then, run to mommy and daddy the government to fork over other peoples' money to subsidize your failures. I've got a better idea. Umm... No.

Fuck GM. Did the government bail out Packard? No. Studebaker? No. Auburn? No. Did we survive without them? Just fine, thank you. General Motors has been building shit for decades, so good riddance. Let GM sell off what little of their assets that are of any value (perhaps the Corvette division) to Toyota or BMW, then bulldoze the rest into Lake Michigan. At least the foreign companies can build quality cars in America, with American workers, and still turn a profit -- largely because they don't have to pay shakedown protection money to organized crime the UAW, but also because they know how to build cars:

In the 1970s a survey was taken of German and American auto executives. They were asked, "What do you do?" The Americans replied, "We sell cars." The Germans answered, "We build cars." It was a difference in corporate culture. The Japanese noticed. They decided to build cars, and they succeeded. Many Americans today, brought up on Pontiacs and Fords, won't own an American car, unless it's a car made in Ohio by a foreign company. What a stunning change.

American cars suck. I learn this lesson at great expense every 10 years or so when I decided to give Detroit another chance. They never fail to disappoint. I drive a Jeep Wrangler, purchased new in 2003, and the only reason I'm somewhat happy with it is that I bought it with low expectations; when it turned out to be mediocre I felt like I got a bargain. It's got 120,000 miles and is making all sorts of funny noises, but then again it made all sorts of funny noises the day I drove it off the lot. I'll drive it until it dies then bury it in a shallow grave. It will be the last American automobile I ever buy. Does Chrysler Corporation lament this loss of future business? Fuck no... Washington's got them covered, they'll be getting my money one way or another. Sickening.

Simplistic Notions

Oh dear... now that they've taken control over all three branches of government they're not afraid to say it in plain terms that all but the most ignorant among us will understand:



Call me a simpleton, but yes... I DO believe in the "simplistic notion" that I'm entitled to keep the wealth I create and earn. And yes, I do have a seething antipathy towards those who have a more, um, "enlightened" and "nuanced" belief that they can help themselves to my shit.

It really is simple: It's NOT YOURS. It's MINE. So KEEP YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF.

And you wonder why gun sales are skyrocketing?

Messiah Update

A wrap-up of Week One A.O. (After Obama):

Yet another Obama-Lincoln comparison. I need to vomit. This part I find especially rich:

"To reach out to his critics, Lincoln even allowed a reporter from an opposition newspaper, a journalist named Henry Villard, to virtually move into his office in Springfield, Mo., to chronicle the transition."

Yes, I'm certain Obama will be opening the Oval Office to Fox News. There's plenty of precedent for that, he was always fair and open to media outlets that didn't support his candidacy.

Lincoln... LOL! While Republican talking heads were crying about Obama "already measuring the drapes in the Oval Office" a week before the election, I saw past it all and realized the truth: Obama's supporters sycophants were already measuring Mt. Rushmore. What? No room for The One? No problem, just take down Jefferson's mug - who needs him, he owned slaves, right? And while we're at it, why not a national holiday for The President who hasn't actually done anything yet? Yes We Can!

Then again, maybe the comparison isn't so crazy after all... Wasn't Lincoln's first act as President also to grant enemies of America captured illegally on the battelfield the same rights as US citizens in court, right down to government-issue ACLU attorneys. I think I remember that from history class.

So when I read shit like this...

"As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends," Obama said. "Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."

...I have to wonder who the Obamunists think he's talking to - the Republicans, or the Jihadists? The latter, coincidentally, seem to believe that Obama is good for jihad.

"The leader of a jihadi group in Iraq argued Friday that the election of Barack Obama as president represented a victory for radical Islamic groups that had battled American forces since the invasion of Iraq."

I never thought I'd agree with terrorists, but whatcha' know? Only a week after The One is elected and I've already reached common ground with America's sworn enemies. He IS the peacemaker!!!

No. Just kidding. It really makes me ill. In fact it almost makes me nostalgic for Bill Clinton, who merely tried to "Change" the military by Presidential decree with his "don't ask, don't tell, don't drop your soap" policy on his first day on the job. Now we've got a President-elect who, if he listens to those "advisors" who pulled the strings to get him elected, may very well set captured enemy combatants free while the war is still going on... unless he first decrees the war to be over, then I guess they won't be enemies any more. Wow, in hindsight Clinton seems like a big, harmless ol' goofball, doesn't he?

Now, I don't mean to pick on our President-elect -- to do so would be racist, anyway. I'm sure terrorists are the last thing on his mind. After all, they haven't attacked America since September 11, 2001 when it became clear that Bush would be leaving office in 7 short years, and now that Bush is on the way out all the radical Islamists will throw down their arms and love America once again, much like the French. No, The One has some serious shit to deal with -- for starters, he must Rescue Human Civilization. Wow, I bet he didn't realize that was in the job description when he announced his candidacy. And what will he have to Rescue Human Civilization from? Why... the weather. More specifically the rapidly cooling...warming...cooling global temperatures, the rising...dropping sea levels, the expanding...shrinking...expanding glaciers, and the bad, bad (white, Republican, rich) humans that are causing all of this Global Warming...Global Cooling...Climate Change, as pointed out by all of...the majority of...some of the United Nation's finest scientific thinkers...politicians, a couple of whom are actual climatologists. So once Obama takes office, he must shift America's limited resources away from the so-called "War on Terror" and start fighting the real war -- The War on Weather.

After the planet is saved, The One can settle into the easy job of fixing our economy that was decimated by the Failed Economic Policies of the Bush Administration and John McCain, who refused to do anything about the impending subprime mortgage market collapse. I say the job is easy, because all you need to do is confiscate wealth from those who earn it and hand it over to those who didn't; history has proven that always works. And those middle-class tax cuts and other miracles that you were promised? Oh... heh. Just kidding. C'mon, can't you people take a joke? Besides, who needs unpatriotic tax cuts -- soon our economy will rebound to new heights and America will once again be taxed into the prosperity of the Carter years. Your dog will shit gold bullion and $100 bills (with Obama's face on them, no doubt) will grow on trees.

And just in time, too -- we've got another failing industry to bail out reward for their incompetence.

HopeChange™, you racists.

Why I Moved To Texas.

Any questions?

VDH: The End Of Journailsm

Memo to all the Obama sycophants and cheerleaders in the so-called "journalism" department of the brothel known as The American Media: The Jig Is Up (no pun intended).

"There have always been media biases and prejudices. Everyone knew that Walter Cronkite, from his gilded throne at CBS news, helped to alter the course of the Vietnam War, when, in the post-Tet depression, he prematurely declared the war unwinnible. Dan Rather's career imploded when he knowingly promulgated a forged document that impugned the service record of George W. Bush. We've known for a long time - from various polling, and records of political donations of journalists themselves, as well as surveys of public perceptions - that the vast majority of journalists identify themselves as Democratic, and liberal in particular.

Yet we have never quite seen anything like the current media infatuation with Barack Obama, and its collective desire not to raise key issues of concern to the American people.

...

The media has succeeded in shielding Barack Obama from journalistic scrutiny. It thereby irrevocably destroyed its own reputation and forfeited the trust that generations of others had so carefully acquired. And it will never again be trusted to offer candid and nonpartisan coverage of presidential candidates."

I disagree only in the details -- that is to say, journalism died a long time ago; what occurred this election was just one final putrid outgassing from the long-rotting carcass of Dead Journalism.

Let us rejoice, for now we now know it's all propaganda, as so many of us have been saying for so long. All the media did was provide the incontrovertible evidence, however unwittingly. We can now just ignore the media's charade of impartiality and choose which opinions to read without any pretense of impartiality.

BTW, I have to take a piss... where, exactly, is Journalism's grave?

Hope, Change, Justice

A preview of Progressive Social Justice, coming soon to your neighborhood:

Crime:

2 accused of hanging Obama effigy on Ky. campus
A University of Kentucky student and another man were arrested Thursday, accused of hanging a life-sized likeness of Barack Obama from a tree on the campus..."This was a serious incident. It caused a lot of wounds to be opened from racial tension," said University of Kentucky acting police chief Joe Monroe.

Not-Crime:

Effigy of Sarah Palin hanging by a noose creates uproar in West Hollywood
A West Hollywood Halloween display showing a likeness of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin hanging by a noose has caused a furor among some residents who reported it as a hate crime, authorities said Monday. But Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said the mannequin sporting a beehive hairdo, glasses and a red coat does not rise to the level of a hate crime because it was part of a Halloween display.

HopeChange™

Judgement Day Cometh

My New Hero

Ladies and gentlemen, the brilliant and erudite Mr. Pat Condell:

But wait... there's more!

Personal Responsibility Si, Bailout NO!

Some guy (or gal) going by the handle "chredon" posted this bit of wisdom (and for once I don't say "wisdom" with derisive sarcasm; this is the real thing) in response to a Blame The Republicans screed by some shriveled up old cunt of a Democrat party hack named Marie Coco in which she called for the "conviction" of Bush, Cheney, the GOP... basically everyone but the corrupt Democrats who were up to their eyeballs in the Economic Crisis Du Jour:

It just goes to prove that no matter which side you are on, it's much easier to interpret the facts to fit your own preconceived notions of what's happened than to actually try to connect the dots and figure things out for yourself.

First, to those of you who constantly refer to the Sept 1999 NYT article about the Clinton administration pushing loans to people who normally wouldn't qualify: it might help if you read the full text of that article. You see, what Clinton proposed and Fannie implemented was a plan to INSURE (not make, but INSURE) loans made to people who were JUST UNDER the normal line of acceptability, in exchange for a one-percent increase in the FIXED INTEREST RATE on the loan for TWO YEARS. These are not the loans that are failing. The loans that are failing are the creation of banks: three, five, and seven-year balloons, two-year ARMs, no-doc loans that you don't even have to prove your employment to get, zero-interest loans. A whole raft of loans being made BY BANKS, not by Federal requirement. The definition of a sub-prime loan is one that Fannie and Freddie won't buy.

Why did banks create these risky loan types? Because changes slipped into a 1999 budget bill at the last second by Phil Gramm overturned Glass-Stegall and allowed investment houses to buy, sell, and trade mortgages like securities. This new market was totally unregulated. This led to the rise of Mortgage-backed Securities. Wall Street investment houses made tons of money buying and selling these. The would take out loans (sell commercial paper) to get the money they needed to buy them. Executives made huge bonuses on them. As a result, they were hungry to get more of them, and put pressure on banks to sell them more mortgages. This allowed banks to make riskier and riskier mortgages, since the bank never had anything at risk - they would just sell the mortgage to the investment houses. After 9/11, Allan Greenspan lowered interest rates, which made mortgages even cheaper to get into. With all these mortgages being made, the housing market got tight and prices began to rise quickly. That allowed individuals to buy homes as an investment, taking out a loan with a low introductory rate in the hopes of selling the property before the piper came to be paid.

Eventually, home prices rose to the point that no one else could get into this Ponzi scheme. And then the thing that everyone feared happened. Home prices started to re-adjust downward at the same time that ARM levels started to re-adjust upward. Suddenly, people could no longer afford their payments, couldn't unload the property for what they owed on it, and couldn't re-finance. So what did they do? They defaulted and gave the property to the banks.

Investment banks started to see a growing number of defaults. So they began to buy investment insurance from AIG and other lenders. AIG insured these Mortgage-backed securities fairly inexpensively, since mortgages had always been one of the safest investments in history. So rating agencies like Fair Isaac continued to give these investments Triple-A ratings, and AIG insured them accordingly.

And that's where we were six months ago. House prices started to fall. Home buyers started to default. Investment houses stopped buying mortgages. Investors stopped buying mortgage-backed securities. AIG stopped insuring the investments.

And then people looked around and noticed...

No one had any clear idea what these Mortgage-backed securities were worth.

AIG had insured 35 times more bad mortgages than their entire company was worth, and a large number of them were in default.

Investment banks had borrowed 50-70 times more money than they had assets to cover in order to by mortgages, and a large number of them were in default.

Banks were still holding many mortgages that the investment banks would not buy, and many of them were in default.

Freddie and Fannie had backed trillions of dollars of Triple-A rated loans, only to find they were nowhere near as solid as they had been led to believe.

All our nation's credit capital was tied up in mortgages that might not pay off.

So, everyone please note that NOWHERE IN THIS ENTIRE LITANY DID I MENTION GEORGE BUSH, BILL CLINTON, CHRIS DODD, BARNEY FRANK, JOHN McCAIN, or BARAK OBAMA.

Government did NOT cause this crisis. Reagan, Clinton, Phil Gramm, Allan Greenspan, and many, many others set up a climate wherein this crisis could happen. But it happened because investment bankers found a way to make huge sums of money buying and selling mortgages. And while many people, including both John McCain and Barak Obama, have spoken out in warning of this impending disaster, no one has done anything to avert it.

Who could have done something? It's a long list...

Ben Bernake could have raised interest rates and make mortgages less inviting as an investment.

Henry Paulson could have instituted or enforced checks and balances already on the books.

Congress could have changed the laws to regulate this behavior.

President Bush could have appointed regulators who believed in regulations, not hands-off free-market types, or taken a lot of other steps to head it off.

So while Wall Street created this mess, there were any number of government agents who could have stopped it, but did not. Some refused for ideological reasons. Some didn't have the power. Some didn't see the need. But they all failed in their duty to put the nation's best interests above their own or those of a narrow group of people.

And so here we are. And all the pointed fingers in the world won't plug the hole in this dike before it collapses and floods us. So could be concentrate on the SOLUTION please, and leave the BLAME to the historians?

Read the second-to-last paragraph again (and again, and again, until it sinks in) and answer me this: Do we really want the same government officials that allowed this mess to happen to be the ones to "solve" the problem? Sorry, my confidence level is zero.

...and thanks for all the fish.

Iraq's national security adviser said Tuesday his country will not accept any security deal with the United States unless it contains specific dates for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces.

OK... how about tomorrow?

There's a reason true conservatives (the un-compassionate variety) have long decried the concept of nation building. I was not opposed to settling our long-overdue business with Iraq (the one nation on Earth, I might remind everyone, that was shooting at American planes prior to September 11, 2001). But if these chimps are so eager to brush away the hand that tries to help them off their asses and into the 21st Century, then they are not worth another drop of American blood. Let the UN take it from here - without US finance. Let's start rebuilding our country; I believe there's a wall that needs building on the southern border. Fuck Iraq.

Same goes for Germany, Japan, Korea and every other ungrateful shithole around the globe, all of which have for too long enjoyed the benefits of our military presence, enabling them to transfer the duty and responsibility of defending their own citizens and borders to American soldiers, while they stab us in the back every time we ask for even a fraction of the help we've provided to them in spades for the past century. Good riddance to them, too..

Bonus: A special Fuck You to our Euroweenie "allies". Thanks for all your help. When you find your Socialist Eutopia on the brink of sharia law, don't call The Ugly Americans. Try the UN instead, see if they can't pass a strongly-worderd resolution or something.