Steve Kroft’s explosive 60 Minutes report on rampant ‘legal’ congressional insider trading last Sunday provoked fury and heartache at an elitist political class spiraling out of control. I cannot claim to have romantic notions about any politician, but this latest disclosure is the final nail in the coffin. For politicians to use access to insider information to line their own pockets while sitting on or even trashing legislation that might adversely affect their personal profits is despicable. All the while, Wall Street continues to function like a giant Ponzi scheme. Representatives who claim to have our backs instead put us on the hook for irresponsible business practices and then profit from the same mistakes that cost average Americans their pensions.

We know that the regular rules do not apply to the “1 percenters.” Make no mistake; the 1 percenters refer to politicians as much as any “evil” banker since Congress counts at least 267 millionaires in their ranks. The message to those of us out here on the ground is clear: Take what crumbs we give you. Your voices will not be heard.

CBS’ 60 Minutes reported insider trading activity by four Republicans, including House Speaker Boehner, and only one Democrat, namely former Speaker and current Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Yet Throw Them All Out, Peter Schweizer’s book on which Kroft’s report is based, implicates plenty of Democrats, including Senator John Kerry who made a killing on pharmaceutical stocks in 2003 while on a committee influencing the same. But given the current nature of the fourth estate, with many reporters trading objectivity for access and a seven figure book deal, I am shocked such a story saw the light of day, balanced or not.

In Ms. Pelosi’s case, while House Speaker, she and her husband were offered very favorable terms in a credit card IPO. She likewise made a killing while sitting on legislation for two years that would have reduced her profit margin. For shame. Schweizer was condemned by Ms. Pelosi’s team as a “conservative writer” with an “agenda” even though Kroft stated that Schweizer’s research had been independently confirmed. Republican Rep. Spencer Bachus of Georgia, chair of the House Committee on Financial Services, basically bet against his own county in the financial crisis of 2008 and likewise made a killing in the market. There are now calls for his resignation.

As a result of Schweizer’s book, legislation is being proposed to stop the outrageous practice of legal insider trading by Congress. Let’s see how far it gets. It has been tried before only to die a quick death.

While Tea Partyers and the Occupy Wall Street crowds have gained some traction calling attention to perils of government overspending and greedy bankers, respectively, it is the Tea Party that has a more accurate perspective. Only through an irresponsible legislative body on both sides does other crooked activity flourish. It all rolls downhill.

Unfortunately, the truth of that message is obscured. The bulk of mainstream media helps to muddy the waters with biased coverage.

Most media outlets downplay reports of rapes, assaults, health hazards and filthy conditions at some of the OWS encampments around the country in what I assume is an attempt to glorify the movement. That same media has made a herculean effort to paint the Tea Party as right wing “extremists and racists.” Given the media’s predisposition for running interference for this President, as it did for his predecessor, it is not hard to glean their reasons for unfavorable characterizations of a group that targets government misbehavior rather than just the crooks on Wall Street.

In 2010, the Washington Post featured a story by a young woman who spent a year attending every Tea Party rally imaginable. She found scant evidence of racism, despite what the mainstream media, self-serving political operatives and frankly, anyone with a platform seems to imply. Likewise, there are OWS protesters with honest concerns and good motives who are not violent and do not defecate on cars.

Any grassroots movement is only as good – or bad – as those co-opting it. And it will only be deemed as good or bad as those who purchase ink by the barrel decide it can be.

Sarah Palin offered an op-ed in the Wall St. Journal in which she pointed out the need for “sudden and relentless reform” and bipartisan grassroots efforts to get it:

This call for real reform must transcend political parties. The grass-roots movements of the right and the left should embrace this. The tea party’s mission has always been opposition to waste and crony capitalism, and the Occupy protesters must realize that Washington politicians have been “Occupying Wall Street” long before anyone pitched a tent in Zuccotti Park.

Her suggested solutions:

We need reform that provides real transparency. Congress should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act like everyone else. We need more detailed financial disclosure reports, and members should submit reports much more often than once a year. All stock transactions above $5,000 should be disclosed within five days.

We need equality under the law. From now on, laws that apply to the private sector must apply to Congress, including whistleblower, conflict-of-interest and insider-trading laws. Trading on nonpublic government information should be illegal both for those who pass on the information and those who trade on it. (This should close the loophole of the blind trusts that aren’t really blind because they’re managed by family members or friends.)

No more sweetheart land deals with campaign contributors. No gifts of IPO shares. No trading of stocks related to committee assignments. No earmarks where the congressman receives a direct benefit. No accepting campaign contributions while Congress is in session. No lobbyists as family members, and no transitioning into a lobbying career after leaving office. No more revolving door, ever.

Not bad ideas. Then it is possible that politics may revert to being a public service rather than a path to millionaires’ row. I won’t hold my breath.

Grassroots – and bipartisan – fury is the only thing that may have an effect on our damaged political system, yet we cannot even seem to accomplish that, as demagoguery works to keep left and right busy tearing each other down, rather than seeing the true culprits here.

Self-serving political operatives and their cronies gin up all sorts of distractions to keep us focused on making enemies of one another, which keeps the attention off the more insidious crimes taking place behind closed doors.

As the late George Carlin once said, “You think you have choice in this country? Here is your choice: Leaded or unleaded. Decaf or Regular. Window or Aisle.” We are not encouraged to think critically to affect change, but rather to engage in what writer Robert A. Johnson called shadow projections – ‘I don’t have something because you have it. My life stinks because of you.’ It is a malaise that keeps us looking for bad guys, and gals, in all the wrong places. This generally leads to boxing with shadows, nothing more.

The halls of power offer a seductive siren song promising personal enrichment and influence. The protected political class, along with the irresponsible blokes in our financial sector had best beware the day that both sides let the smoke clear to see past the bread and circus distractions offered by those in charge. If America’s left and right ever figure out who the real criminals are, 60% of Congress will be out of a job. And the cronies they have long protected will likewise get a pink slip.

What is it, you may ask? Well, this: Soaring Costs Force Canada To Reassess Health Model. Oh, dear. Isn’t this the model the Democrats claimed worked so well, and was one to emulate here in the States? Wasn’t that the constant rallying cry to shove through Obamacare, whether we wanted it or not (and “or not” was what we wanted)? Were not those of us who tried to point out that there were very real problems with the Canadian system scoffed at, derided, and dismissed? Yes, yes we were.

Well, here’s the thing. Once again, we were right, as the article mentioned above demonstrates:

Pressured by an aging population and the need to rein in budget deficits, Canada’s provinces are taking tough measures to curb healthcare costs, a trend that could erode the principles of the popular state-funded system.

Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, kicked off a fierce battle with drug companies and pharmacies when it said earlier this year it would halve generic drug prices and eliminate “incentive fees” to generic drug manufacturers.

British Columbia is replacing block grants to hospitals with fee-for-procedure payments and Quebec has a new flat health tax and a proposal for payments on each medical visit — an idea that critics say is an illegal user fee.

And a few provinces are also experimenting with private funding for procedures such as hip, knee and cataract surgery.

It’s likely just a start as the provinces, responsible for delivering healthcare, cope with the demands of a retiring baby-boom generation. Official figures show that senior citizens will make up 25 percent of the population by 2036.

“There’s got to be some change to the status quo whether it happens in three years or 10 years,” said Derek Burleton, senior economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank.

“We can’t continually see health spending growing above and beyond the growth rate in the economy because, at some point, it means crowding out of all the other government services.

“At some stage we’re going to hit a breaking point.”

Huh. Here Canada is having problems, and their relationship with drug companies seems to be a tad bit different from the one Obama has. That is to say, they are actively fighting them, and fighting FOR their citizens, as opposed to Obama making a deal with Big Pharma from the Get-go which definitely was in Big Pharma’s favor. Yt, Canada is having problems:

MIRROR IMAGE DEBATE

In some ways the Canadian debate is the mirror image of discussions going on in the United States.

Canada, fretting over budget strains, wants to prune its system, while the United States, worrying about an army of uninsured, aims to create a state-backed safety net.

Healthcare in Canada is delivered through a publicly funded system, which covers all “medically necessary” hospital and physician care and curbs the role of private medicine. It ate up about 40 percent of provincial budgets, or some C$183 billion ($174 billion) last year.

Spending has been rising 6 percent a year under a deal that added C$41.3 billion of federal funding over 10 years.

But that deal ends in 2013, and the federal government is unlikely to be as generous in future, especially for one-off projects.

“As Ottawa looks to repair its budget balance … one could see these one-time allocations to specific health projects might be curtailed,” said Mary Webb, senior economist at Scotia Capital.

Brian Golden, a professor at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Business, said provinces are weighing new sources of funding, including “means-testing” and moving toward evidence-based and pay-for-performance models.

“Why are we paying more or the same for cataract surgery when it costs substantially less today than it did 10 years ago? There’s going to be a finer look at what we’re paying for and, more importantly, what we’re getting for it,” he said.

Other problems include trying to control independently set salaries for top hospital executives and doctors and rein in spiraling costs for new medical technologies and drugs.

Ontario says healthcare could eat up 70 percent of its budget in 12 years, if all these costs are left unchecked.

SEVENTY PERCENT?? Well, I don’t have to be a Nobel Prize Winner in Economics to know THAT is not good (though these days, accomplishments have become passe – ahem):

“Our objective is to preserve the quality healthcare system we have and indeed to enhance it. But there are difficult decisions ahead and we will continue to make them,” Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan told Reuters.

The province has introduced legislation that ties hospital chief executive pay with the quality of patient care and says it wants to put more physicians on salary to save money.

In a report released last week, TD Bank said Ontario should consider other proposals to help cut costs, including scaling back drug coverage for affluent seniors and paying doctors according to quality and efficiency of care.

Those sound like some possible options, but the outcome is unclear:

WINNERS AND LOSERS

The losers could be drug companies and pharmacies, both of which are getting increasingly nervous.

“Many of the advances in healthcare and life expectancy are due to the pharmaceutical industry so we should never demonize them,” said U of T’s Golden. “We need to ensure that they maintain a profitable business but our ability to make it very very profitable is constrained right now.”

Scotia Capital’s Webb said one cost-saving idea may be to make patients aware of how much it costs each time they visit a healthcare professional. “(The public) will use the services more wisely if they know how much it’s costing,” she said.

“If it’s absolutely free with no information on the cost and the information of an alternative that would be have been more practical, then how can we expect the public to wisely use the service?”

But change may come slowly. Universal healthcare is central to Canada’s national identity, and decisions are made as much on politics as economics.

“It’s an area that Canadians don’t want to see touched,” said TD’s Burleton. “Essentially it boils down the wishes of the population. But I think, from an economist’s standpoint, we point to the fact that sometimes Canadians in the short term may not realize the cost.”

($1=$1.05 Canadian) (Reporting by Claire Sibonney; editing by Janet Guttsman and Peter Galloway)

Isn’t that the single biggest issue right now? Once a social program has begun, people do not want to give them up? Isn’t that what happened in Greece? Isn’t that a big problem for the US, too? We continue to expand and extend programs that have massive benefits we cannot afford. For example, did you know in some states Unemployment Benefits were extended to 99 weeks? I’m sure you can do the math, but that’s almost 2 years! Could that money not have been better used in a WPA sort of way? Or some other jobs-creation plan? There are claims that the EUC is actually expanding unemployment. That is, simply put, problematic.

But here’s the biggest problem with the whole Canadian health care crisis compared to ours – our financial numbers were fudged. Only after the bill became a law did the REAL numbers start coming out, and they are NOT good. Check out what former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin stated recently:

Yikes. Again, this is what happens when a bill is rammed through without people bothering to read it first, filling it full of pork and giveaways, and expecting more service for less money. That is to say, it was fraught with problems from the beginning. We can only hope that before it is fully implemented, there is a massive overhaul or repeal.

I am all for people having health care, but as I have said before, let’s be smart about it. Do our homework first. REALLY look at the numbers, get out of Obama’s Big Pharma deal, and do right by all of our citizens, not corporations or political parties. Let Canada be a warning to us.

“We’re going to have to make some tough choices” about the deficit and national debt, President Obama said to a crowded gymnasium full of supporters at Indian Hills Community College, after a lengthy riff on how the unsustainable debt would need to be tackled.

This, unlike most of what the president said during the town hall meeting, was met with silence.

“I noticed I didn’t get a lot of clapping about the whole ‘We’re gonna have the hard choices’ thing,” the president ribbed the crowd.

The President is ribbing the crowd? Now that’s what I call “The Audacity of Hope.” Half million dollar pizza parties. The most expensive inauguration in history. After this gentleman spent all of last year more than tripling spending (yes, I know, I know, it was all Bush’s fault) now he wants to tell the American people it is time to make some hard choices?

More frustrating than the endless campaigning and political posturing is the notion that the American people are so bloody stupid, they will not leap to the same conclusions I just did. Further, he tells us this stuff as if he just thought of it. Haven’t the tea partiers, for one, been screaming about these very problems for over a year?

Could it be President Obama is not aware why his audience sat on their hands for his remark about “hard choices?” I cannot prove that the people of Ottumwa, Iowa agree with my assessment but perhaps this might be a reason why he did not receive the adulation he is used to and so craves:

It is offensive to be lectured to about fiscal restraint by a man who has been spending taxpayer money like a drunken sailor for the better part of a year and a half, bailing out and covering for reckless companies with reckless management styles that continue to scam the American people, hiding the true cost of the legislation his Congress has been ramming down our throats and promising transparency while delivering the opposite.

The people of Iowa, and the rest of American for that matter, have been practicing plenty of fiscal retraint as they deal with high unemployment, watching their savings dwindle to dangerously low levels amidst an uncertain future with an administration that appears tone deaf as to their problems.

Any President that keeps trying to sell the bill of goods that cap and trade is going to help solve our economic problems instead of finally planting his feet behind the desk to figure out how to put more people back ot work in this country really needs to talk less to the American people – and listen more.

“This will bear on how we think about our federal budget in the future,” [Obama] said. “Everybody dislikes Washington right now, and everybody wants to lower their taxes. Everybody hates waste in government. But at the same time, you know, government does some important things like helping to make sure you’ve got clean drinking water and that your roads aren’t full of potholes.”

Please Mr. President, stop telling me what I hate. I don’t hate taxes. I am more than happy to pay my fair share and do so regularly. I hate when my taxpayerdollars go to bailout out the actions of corrupt actors who are not held to the same rules as I am. I do not hate government. I hate bloated government, local, state and federal, that enjoys no end of perks and bloated salaries and perks. I appreciate the good things that government does, which is why I pay taxes. What I don’t appreciate is the things my tax money is supposed to pay for – like education – gets “borrowed” away and never returned.

Clearly, the President has no idea what I hate which gives me a clear indication of why his policies have nothing to do with the urgent needs of the American people.
Close attention need by paid to the following:

…Earlier in the day, back in Washington, DC, he’d presided over the first meeting of his Debt Commission, which will issue recommendations after the November 2010 elections on ways to reduce the $12.8 trillion national debt.

“I’ve said that it’s important that we not restrict the review or the recommendations that this commission comes up with in any way,” the president said at the meeting. “Everything has to be on the table. …This means that all of you, our friends in the media, will ask me and others once a week or once a day about what we’re willing to rule out or rule in when it comes to the recommendations of the commission. That’s an old Washington game and it’s one that has made it all but impossible in the past for people to sit down and have an honest discussion about putting our country on a more secure fiscal footing. So I want to deliver this message today: We’re not playing that game. I’m not going to say what’s in. I’m not going to say what’s out. I want this commission to be free to do its work.”

Could it be he is not going to give you any details about what is “in it” until after the midterms because if he told you now, all his herd mentality Dems insistently following Pelosi and Reid off a cliff would be voted down this November? Is that why we are not getting a report from the Debt Commision until after that?

In Ottumwa, the president previewed for the crowd that whatever the commission comes up with, “we’re going to have a very tough debate about how to bring down our deficits.”

He continued, “as this debate unfolds, I just want everybody to pay attention to what folks are saying. A lot of times politicians will tell you, ‘I’m going to cut your taxes, I’m going to lower the deficit, I’m going to expand Medicare.’”

Don’t settle for that, the president told the crowd. “Ask every politician when they say they’re going to balance the budget and deal with the deficit: ‘What exactly are you going to cut? What spending are you willing to eliminate? Are you going to eliminate funding for sewers? Are you going to reduce the cost of Medicare? Because there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Who the hell out here has been getting a free lunch. The free lunch has gone to the folks at Goldman Sachs, Fannie and Freddie, and GM (who claim they paid back their bailouts — however they did it with other TARP money).

A free lunch? Why does President Obama insist upon being condescending? Beyond his pronouncements from on high about “bitter voters,” this reminds me of candidate Obama’s pronouncement about Democrats and abortion during the campaign. As reported by CBS News:

“The mistake pro-choice forces have sometimes made in the past, and this is a generalization . . . has been to not acknowledge the wrenching moral issues involved,” he said.

Really? Do we not? Telling us what we do and do not like or believe seems to be a pattern.

Reading the other fine print of his statement in Iowa, he wants us to ask other politicians what THEY are going to do – but we cannot ask the President what HE is going to do. “We’re not going to play that game?” All he is doing is playing games, while taxpayers can only look on in frustration and disbelief.

The president said “the way folks talk about it in Washington,” you might think the debt could be solved by reducing waste and abuse, eliminating foreign aid and earmarks. But those are relatively small parts of the budget, he said.

Which “folks” are these, exactly?

“We could eliminate all foreign aid and all earmarks and we’d still have a huge problem, because most of our budget goes to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and defense spending, about 70 percent of the budget. Everything else we do is only about 30 percent of the budget. So this is going to be a tough bunch of choices that we gotta make here.”

Okay – so here is the bitter pill to swallow – get ready folks. Here come the cuts! So that if you have been paying in to Medicare, as my mother has, for example, in her 50 years in the work force, you can expect less. Presidents like to point toward Social Security’s impending insolvency without mentioning part of the reason it is in trouble is because government keeps borrowing money from it that they do not put back.
Remember his economic advisor Austan Goosbee talked about privatizing Social Security? Do not be surprised if you hear rumbings next year, too – the same rumblings President Bush made several years ago. Now I ask you – would you want the private sector – otherwise known as Wall Street crooks – playing with your dough while you’re busy keeping the roof over your head and don’t have enough time to daily monitor their shenanigans?

“I just want everybody to be prepared” for this debate, which will take place over the next couple years. “Remember when I was running for office, I said I will not just tell you what you want to hear, I would tell you what you needed to hear. And you needed to hear that we’re going to have some hard choices about our deficit.”

Oh, that was my favorite comment of all. I have never heard a bigger pile of horse hooey! And that is saying something. He told everybody what they wanted to hear out on the campaign trail – unicorns and giant popsicles. But little else.

Is there anyone with the courage to stand up and insist that this President start telling the truth? The press has already proven themselves to be, almost uniformly, nothing more than notches on his bedpost, cowed from speaking up for fear of a lack of access, which would mean a loss of their $5 million dollar book deals.

Who is speaking for us?

Thank you. Rant over.

According to CNN, when it comes to the passage of the new health care bill…

[Billy] Wharton, co-chair of the Socialist Party USA, sees no reason to celebrate. He’s seen people with bumper stickers and placards that call Obama a socialist, and he has a message for them: Obama isn’t a socialist. He’s not even a liberal.

“We didn’t see a great victory with the election of Barack Obama,” Wharton says, “and we certainly didn’t see our agenda move from the streets to the White House.”

Obama’s opponents have long described him as a socialist. But what do actual socialists think about Obama? Not much, says Wharton.

And here is where CNN shares a doozy and my second favorite line of the entire article. According to Mr. Wharton:

“He’s the president whose main goal is to protect the wealth of the richest 5 percent of Americans.”

Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding !!!! Bingo! You win the prize. Corporate bailouts. Crony capitalism. “Too big to fail policies” that encourage Wall Street thugs who have been reckless to continue said behavior knowing they will get bailed out when they fail again. A health insurance plan to benefit Big Insurance and Big Phrma, bailing out mis-managed car companies….

Mr. Obama is a corporatist.

One of his biggest economic advisors is Austan Goolsbee (um, the guy who wants to privatize Social Security). I said it when President Bush was trying to do the same thing – do you want some of these Wall Street ganeffs (crooks) managing your hard earned dough and playing Ponzi schemes with your retirement?

The following should be of interest:

[Wharton] and others say the assertion that Obama is a socialist is absurd.

“It makes no rational sense. It clearly means that people don’t understand what socialism is.”

Definitions of socialism vary, but most socialists believe workers and consumers who are affected by economic institutions should own or control them.

Not all socialists, though, want to confiscate personal property. Democratic Socialists are more interested in protecting ordinary people from unregulated capitalism through regulation and progressive taxation.

Some of the socialist agenda is already part of American life, according to Wharton and others.

Social Security, Medicare, unemployment benefits — all reflect socialistic values, says Van Gosse, an associate professor of history at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who has researched socialist movements in the United States and Latin America.

The widely accepted notions of public education and Pell Grants for college students are socialistic in origin, Gosse says. They fit well with the socialistic premise that government should provide basic security from the cradle to the grave to all of its citizens, he says.

“We assert that education should not be left up to the private market — where those who can pay, get it and those who can’t, don’t get it,” Gosse says. “It’s a common good and in that sense it is a socialistic institution even if the U.S. remains a capitalist nation.”

Socialists are not happy with the recent 2,700 page health insurance reform bill…

They don’t applaud the passage of the recent health care bill either. They wanted a national “single-payer” health insurance plan with a government option. The bill that Obama championed didn’t have any of those features.

Wharton said the new health care bill only strengthens private health insurance companies. They get 32 million new customers and no incentive to change — something a socialist wouldn’t accept.

“Most of it was authored by the health care industry,” Wharton says. “I call it the corporate restructuring of health care.”

BINGO!! And in regard to The Obama administrations actions re the banks, just like Bush before him:

Other critics point to Obama’s Wall Street bailout — which actually had its roots in the Bush administration. Critics say it’s socialistic for government to assume control of private industry.

Frank Llewellyn, national director of the Democratic Socialists of America, says the bailout had nothing to do with socialism.

Llewellyn says a socialist leader would have at least nationalized some of the troubled banks.

“He gave them [the banks] too much with no strings attached,” Llewellyn says. “Banks that were too big to fail are bigger, and they can still fail.”

How about Obama’s bailout of the Detroit auto industry? During the bailout, the federal government assumed partial ownership of General Motors.

“It’s not socialism,” Llewellyn says. “The mere fact that the government owns something or has a stake in it, doesn’t make it socialist. If that was true, you would say that we have a socialist army. The government owns the army.”

Here’s where it gets interesting:

Defining socialism is complex, Llewellyn says, but it starts with a simple goal: Socialists want to introduce democratic features into the economy to reduce inequality.

The economy has “to be run for the overall benefit of the entire population, not for the benefits of a very few people.”

By that measure, Obama’s economic policies are not socialist, he says.

Many here at NoQuarter have long maintained that Presidents Obama and Bush are mirror images of each other. Mr. Llewellyn’s comments go some distance in making that point.

A tea party member had this to say in response:

“The role of government is to provide a safe environment to conduct business, not to take from one and give to the other,” says Quagliaroli, a financial planner who lives in Woodstock, Georgia.

Quagliaroli was not persuaded by the arguments of other socialist leaders who reject the idea that Obama is a socialist.

“He’s just not socialist enough for them.”

Quagliaroli says he doesn’t like socialism because it breeds mediocrity and encourages people to “live on the dole.” Capitalism “breeds excellence” because it encourages initiative, he says.

I have likewise heard other heretofore compassionate people becoming judgmental over the lifestyles of others, particularly if they are reckless, since we are now going to have to subsidize them. If “spreading the wealth acround” means I have lived by the rules my whole life and now have to bail out those who haven’t — no, I don’t like that either.

And now we come to my favorite line in the entire article – this ought to have heads exploding all over the country:

The argument over Obama’s ideology may rage on, but at least one socialist says another prominent politician ought to be inserted into the debate.

Llewellyn, the national director of the Democratic Socialists of America, says he was struck by one player in the 2008 presidential elections who displayed more socialistic leanings than Obama.

This candidate raised taxes on the big oil companies, and sent the revenue to the people.

If you want to learn something about spreading the wealth, Llewellyn says, don’t look to Obama.

“To be honest, the most socialist candidate in the 2008 election was Sarah Palin.”

Hmmm. Well, at least that gives the lie to lefties claiming Sarah Palin is some sort of reactionary.

I think the reason so many keep calling President Obama a socialist is that they don’t know how to term his political philosophy. Perhaps because the only one he seems to have is the one that is going to get him re-elected – namely putting money in the pockets of the groups who have the most dough to spend on his campaign.

His supporters didn’t want to admit it, but he got more money from Wall Street than any other candidate. Fannie and Freddie, Unions, Big Insurance, Big Phrma likewise helped put him over the top – burying all comers in an avalanche of money. His policies most seem to benefit them. Not us. Even the rumblings we are hearing about proposed regulatory reform in the banking industry leave me doubtful anything will be imposed that has real teeth. This health care plan was more or less written by insurance companies for their own benefit. How can we believe anything else that comes out of this administration is going to be for the benefit of those on the street?

Frankly, I’m not sure what name to give what is coming out of this White House but it sure seems to continue the idea that an elite few create policies that most benefit themselves, and we are told to sit down, shut up and take what’s left over.

What would you call it?

To the Health Care Industry, Big Pharma, and a few select states. Yes, in the wee hours of the morning (okay, 7:00 a.m.), the Senate voted to pass the Health-Care-less-what-the-people-and-physicians-say Bill. Oh, yes – what a banner day. The Senate rammed through a bill so fraught with problems it would be laughable if it didn’t have the potential to affect so many in this country.

But, one person who is very happy about this early morning vote was Barack Obama. Now he can do what he does best – vacation. Yep, he was waiting to make sure this backroom, strong-arm, possibly unConstitutional bill to pass the Senate before going to Hawaii for the holidays. I am sure he is all plumb tuckered from his trip to Norway and Copenhagen in such a short amount of time, and his constant tv appearances. Poor baby, I am sure he is EXHAUSTED.

Obama got what he wanted thus far – oh, no – not any of the things on which he campaigned, mind you. No, he got a Health Care Bill with his name on it to pad his record, assuming that we aren’t smart enough to actually care what the hell is IN it. All he cares about is being able to brag that it happened, not what it will do to the country. Next step, the House of Representatives to jive the two bills together just in time for the State of the Union?

Not if this Representative has anything to say about it, though. And this one is actually a Democrat. I am not referring to Stupak, but to Louise Slaughter (D/NY). I know, I was surprised, too, when I saw this article from CNN, A Democrat’s View From he House: Senate Bill Isn’t Health Reform. Dang, she better be careful of any presents left at her door by Rahm and Harry. Ahem. I have to say, it is mighty courageous of her to speak out like this, and isn’t that a sad commentary, that it would require courage? We’ve seen what happens if a Democrat doesn’t toe the line (“We’re keeping score, brother,” – Obama). No doubt. That’s the Chicago-way.

But Slaughter isn’t from Chicago. She’s from New York:

CNN Editor’s note: Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, a Democrat, represents the 28th Congressional District of New York. Slaughter is the first woman to chair the House Rules Committee and the only microbiologist in Congress.

The Senate health care bill is not worthy of the historic vote that the House took a month ago.

Even though the House version is far from perfect, it at least represents a step toward our goal of giving 36 million Americans decent health coverage.

But under the Senate plan, millions of Americans will be forced into private insurance company plans, which will be subsidized by taxpayers. That alternative will do almost nothing to reform health care but will be a windfall for insurance companies. Is it any surprise that stock prices for some of those insurers are up recently?

I do not want to subsidize the private insurance market; the whole point of creating a government option is to bring prices down. Insisting on a government mandate to have insurance without a better alternative to the status quo is not true reform.

Amen, sister. Right there with ya. Oh, and that whole taxation thing? That will happen immediately even though this program isn’t set to start until 2014. I gotta tell you, considering how much we already pay (including how much MORE we have to pay since we can’t be married, about $2,500 a year), I don’t really care to be shelling out more money to pay for OTHER people’s private health insurance. BUt that’s just me. Oh, and maybe Slaughter:

By eliminating the public option, the government program that could spark competition within the health insurance industry, the Senate has ended up with a bill that isn’t worthy of its support.

The public option is the part of our reform effort that will lower costs, improve the delivery of health care services and force insurance companies to offer rates and services that are reasonable.

Although the art of legislating involves compromise, I believe the Senate went off the rails when it agreed with the Obama Administration to water down the reform bill and no longer include the public option.

But that’s not the only thing wrong with the Senate’s version of the health care bill.

Under that plan, insurance companies can punish older people, charging them much higher rates than the House bill would allow.

In the House, we fought hard to repeal McCarran-Ferguson, the antitrust exemption that insurance companies have enjoyed for years. We did that because we believed firmly that those Fortune 500 corporations should not enjoy special treatment.

Yet the Senate bill does not include that provision — despite assurances from some members that they will seek to add it. By ending that protection, we will be able to go after insurance companies with federal penalties for misleading advertising or dishonest business practices.

The House bill would cover 96 percent of legal residents, while the Senate covers 94 percent. Compared with the House bill, the Senate’s bill makes it much easier for employers to avoid the responsibility of providing insurance for their workers.

And of course, the Senate bill did not remove the onerous choice language intended to appeal to anti-abortion forces.

Now don’t get me wrong; the current House and Senate bills are a significant improvement over the status quo. Given the hard path to reform and the political realities of next year, there is a sizable group within Congress that wants to simply cut any deal that works and call it a success. Many previous efforts have failed, and the path to reform is littered with unsuccessful efforts championed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Bill Clinton.

Supporters of the weak Senate bill say “just pass it — any bill is better than no bill.”

I strongly disagree — a conference report is unlikely to sufficiently bridge the gap between these two very different bills.

It’s time that we draw the line on this weak bill and ask the Senate to go back to the drawing board. The American people deserve at least that.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Louise Slaughter.

I disagree, too. Do it right the first time. DO it so that physicians all across the country don’t give up their practices. Do it so that the middle class won’t be carrying the burden. Do it so that Medicare isn’t cut. Do it so that it truly benefits the people of this country, not just to get it done to get it done. It’s too important to be shoved through like this.

How about taking back this present to the Health Care industry and Big Pharma, and go back to the Drawing Board in the New Year? That would work for me, and the majority of my fellow Americans.

Well, it turns out that figure of $1 million is just a little low. By $4 million dollars, that is. Holy smokes. In this article, ACORN Embezzlement Was $5 Million, LA Attorney General Says, that figure is revised way up, and not by a reporter, or a politician with an ax to grind, as ACORN would not doubt claim, but the State Attorney General:

Louisiana’s attorney general has broadened the scope of an investigation of ACORN to include a possible embezzlement of $5 million a decade ago within the community organization, five times more than previously reported.

ACORN Chief Executive Officer Bertha Lewis said the new reported amount is “completely false.”

Attorney General Buddy Caldwell has been conducting an investigation of ACORN since June. He issued subpoenas in August seeking documents related to former ACORN International President Wade Rathke and his brother Dale Rathke, who kept the group’s books. Those subpoenas were focused on possible ACORN violations for non-payment of employee withholding taxes, obstructing justice and violating the Employee Retirement Security Act. No charges have been made.

The attorney general had inquired in June into an alleged embezzlement within ACORN that happened 10 years ago. The group last year dealt with an internal dispute and a lawsuit involving accusations that Dale Rathke made nearly $1 million in improper credit card charges in 1999 and 2000. The brother and a donor repaid the money.

Did you catch that? A “donor” helped pay back the money. Dale was not formally charged, nor did he have to spend any time in prison. None. Now we know it was so much more money than previously thought:

Caldwell said last month that the statute of limitations presented obstacles to prosecutors taking action on the embezzlement, and that his investigation was not focused on that issue. The subpoena issued Monday changed the tone of the investigation and put a new emphasis on the embezzlement issue.

“Current high-ranking members of ACORN have publicly acknowledged that embezzlement did in fact occur, but the exact amount of the embezzlement was unknown until it was recently acknowledged in a board of directors meeting on Oct. 17, 2008, by Bertha Lewis and Liz Wolf that an internal review had determined that the amount embezzled was $5 million, ” the new subpoena says.

The subpoena says, “It is still unclear if some of the monies embezzled are from state, federal or private funds.”

The subpoena requests documents from Citizens Consulting Inc., a financial arm of ACORN, and from various accounting and legal consultants in New Orleans. Investigators are trying to verify the issues raised in the subpoena.

“We’re going to follow the evidence where it leads us and try to do the right thing,” said David Caldwell, head of the attorney general’s public corruption and special prosecutions divisions. “We are actively investigating the case, whatever the outcome might be. This is something we are devoting our full attention to.”

Wade Rathke, who was in Bangkok, Thailand, on Monday, referred questions to ACORN officials. Lewis said she would comment further after she and ACORN attorneys had a chance to review the subpoena.

ACORN board member Vanessa Gueringer, chairwoman of the Lower 9th Ward Chapter, said she had not seen the subpoena but that the accusation about the larger embezzlement was untrue.

“I believe it is another lie, another witch hunt, ” Gueringer said.

ACORN, which provides counseling on housing and other assistance to low and moderate income families, has been reeling from national negative publicity in recent weeks. Actions have been taken on the federal level and by many states, including Louisiana, to end public contracts with the group. (Robert Travis Scott can be reached at rscott@timespicayune.com or 225.342.4197.)

Now that’s some Major League Denial going on there, isn’t it?? The Attorney General of the State isn’t just making stuff up. He has actually been INVESTIGATING ACORN, and rightly so.

Let’s just do the math here. ACORN has received $53 Million of our taxpaying dollars. Dale Rathke embezzled $5 million from ACORN. Sure they get donations, but honestly – you don’t think some of that money was OURS???? And why is he NOT IN PRISON?? That’s what I’d like to know. Hopefully, he will be soon, thanks to the LA State Attorney General.

And that begs the question – where has everyone ELSE been on this issue? It’s not like it wasn’t public knowledge, and not like it hasn’t been reported in major newspapers across the country. I’m glad someone is doing his job.

And speaking of the Rathke Brothers, don’t forget that Wade is also the one who co-founded the SEIU, yes, the union that held California hostage. Well, you are not going to believe where their name pops up in connection to the White House. Check out this video, beginning at the 1:45 minute mark:

Holy smokes. The SEIU is working with the Wite House and the NEA to spend YOUR/OUR money on propaganda.

And we thought the Bush Administration was bad about the whole propaganda thing…

Recently, I reported that Rep. John Conyers had decided to investigate ACORN – again – after all of the recent revelations into their practices (not that many of us weren’t already aware of the numerous “issues” with ACORN). Well, it turns out that his Senate colleague, Senator Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, refuses to do likewise. That’s right, according to this article in his local Las Vegas Paper, he has good reason: EDITORIAL: Reid Blocks ACORN Probe: Tracking abuse by political allies could be ‘distracting’. That’s right – it would be too distracting.

Are you freaking KIDDING me with that BS excuse?? Well, the Editorial staff of the Las Vegas Review Journal couldn’t believe it, either:

ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — is stinking up Washington.

And this is far more significant than if a suspiciously large number of operatives for a purely “private” outfit had been found systematically bending and breaking the law, because ACORN receives and spends taxpayer money — lots of it — and had carried the imprimatur of official partnerships with the IRS, the Census Bureau … the kind of “cred” that in the political world comes only from “who you know.”

Yes, ACORN has friends in high places — friends who are still stonewalling attempts to trace where all that tax money went … perhaps because they know who still has cookie crumbs all over their hands.

It didn’t start with those undercover videos made by a couple of independent filmmakers posing as a prostitute and her pimp, visiting various ACORN offices around the country and getting helpful advice on how to hide their income and “qualify” for a tax-subsidized mortgage to set up a house of ill repute, declaring three of their dozen (albeit imaginary) underage illegal immigrant prostitutes as “dependents.”

That was just a final shoe dropping loudly enough that the problem could no longer be ignored.

One would think, But apparently, it isn’t enough for Senate Majority Leader Reid, despite what happened in his own STATE:

Here in Clark County, Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said last year he saw “rampant fraud in the 2,000 to 3,000 registrations ACORN turns in every week,” with some 48 percent of those forms being “clearly fraudulent.”

The Las Vegas headquarters of ACORN, “a Democrat-allied organization,” was raided after being “accused of submitting multiple voter registrations with duplicate and false names,” the Washington Times reported last fall. The outfit claimed it had registered to vote in Nevada, among others, the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys.

The raid “set off a skirmish over efforts to expand the electorate on behalf of Sen. Barack Obama,” the Times reported.

Mr. Lomax noted ACORN had hired 59 inmates from a work-release program at a nearby prison and that some inmates who had been convicted of identity theft had been made supervisors. “That led some local wags to joke that at least ACORN was hiring specialists to do their work,” reported John Fund at The Politico, last November.

ACORN’s 2008 Las Vegas field director, Christopher Edwards, pleased guilty last spring to two gross misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit compensation for registration of voters, in a deal that saw him agree to testify against fellow defendants.

So, tell me again just how it was that ACORN was going to receive BILLIONS of our dollars? This is just ONE county in one city, never mind the other states in which ACORN was conducting fraudulent voter registrations:

Fox News’ Eric Shawn reported there were at least 11 investigations across the country involving thousands of potentially fraudulent ACORN forms. Yet none of this was sufficient to block President Obama and his congressional minions from upping federal subsidies to outfits such as Mr. Obama’s former associates at ACORN from the mere millions to the billions of dollars in their “economic stimulus” bill last winter.

Only when presented with the undeniable evidence of the “pimp and ho” videotape did the IRS last week announce it would terminate ACORN’s participation in the agency’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program — shortly after the Census Bureau advised ACORN it could forget about helping with its decennial head count.

Smoke? Fire? Washington Democratic leaders have opted to just lay low and not smell nothin’.

Despite all this evidence and a request in writing by 28 GOP senators — and despite the fact the U.S. Senate voted 83-7 on Sept. 14 to block ACORN from bidding for any more federal grant money — “Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is refusing to hold a Senate hearing on ACORN’s activities,” the National Republican Senatorial Committee complained Wednesday.

Mr. Reid replied additional investigations might distract lawmakers from addressing more important matters, including health care and economic recovery.

I see – he’s taking the President Obama tack of not really acknowledging the rampant fraudulent, potentially CRIMINAL, behavior of ACORN by claiming there are bigger fish to fry. I don’t know about YOU, but I kinda think $8.5 BILLION is a lot of fish:

“It’s become increasingly clear that ACORN may have manipulated tens of thousands of ballots in last year’s federal election — an area where Congress has clear oversight responsibilities — yet Harry Reid won’t lift a finger,” said NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh. “It’s hard to see his latest roadblock as anything but another example of Harry Reid protecting his liberal allies in Washington while remaining out of touch with his constituents in Nevada.”

That’s a politically motivated shot, of course. Stripped of the gratuitous elbowing, however, the question does remain: Do Sen. Reid and congressional Democrats really believe that if they just ignore the big mess their pet bear has dumped in the middle of the room, it’ll somehow stop stinking?

Senator Harry Reid is up for re-election this coming year. If the people needed to know for sure if Harry Reid stood with them, or with a highly questionable, highly partisan organization receiving their tax dollars, and perpetrating fraud in their state, they need look no further. Yes, Harry Reid has finally grown a backbone, not to stand up for his constituents, or the American people, or even the Constitution, but rather a corrupt organization that has worked diligently to throw elections.

Wow, what a stand up guy he has turned out to be, huh?

Holy shit, right?? YOUR TAXPAYING DOLLARS!!!!! Can you believe this? It is simply mind bogging.

In related news, eleven warrants have been issued for ACORN workers in Florida. The charges? Oh, you can guess this one: voter fraud. Yes, arrests are already being made by state authorities and the FBI. As of this writing, six have been arrested, and they are searching for the other five.

Again, your tax paying dollars hard at work, courtesy of Barney Frank, Barack Obama, and the DNC.

UPDATE: This first video has the filmmaker, James O’Keefe, on it, talking about how “helpful” the ACORN people were:

And this one with Megyn Kelly and Andrew Breitbart. ACORN denounces this “gotcha” journalism, claiming that there was some convenient editing going on. Breitbart provides the FULL audio and FULL transcript at BigGovernment.com, and discusses it more fully below:

Did you catch that? How much money ACORN stands to get under the new Stimulus Plan?? Now you know how they are spending that money…

Axelrod puppet Barack Obama studies Axelrod puppet Deval Patrick as the latter offers empty slogans and gestures

David Axelrod manufactures commodities, not politicians: they don suits; they read teleprompters; they promise something new and unprecedented; but these newfangled objects cannot govern. No, I am not referring to Barack Obama, although this news does not bode well for Axelrod’s latest product; I am discussing Deval Patrick, who according to a 7News Boston poll has lost all credibility with the voters of Massachusetts.

Readers of No Quarter recall how Obama and Patrick read from the same script penned by David Axelrod.

I guess the voters of Massachusetts are finally experiencing a moment of disenchantment. Perhaps they now realize that all Axelrod’s commodities cum politicians can offer are “just words.” I quote the Boston Herald:

The survey of 400 registered voters – Democrats, Republicans and unenrolled alike – shows angry Bay Staters quickly losing faith in the state government, with Patrick taking the biggest hit.

Only 34 percent of those surveyed in the poll conducted for 7News by Suffolk University say the governor deserves re-election, while a stunning 47 percent say it is “time to elect someone else.”

Voters gave Patrick a 43 percent unfavorable rating and a 44 percent favorable rating. The rest are undecided….

Asked about Patrick’s job performance, 49 percent disapproved, 40 percent approved and 11 percent were undecided….

Patrick’s dismal poll numbers come after battering in the press over his naming of a senator pal to a costly plum post, raises for sheriffs, addition of two pricey staffers to the Pike payroll, embarrassing comments by his transportation secretary and his own dismissal of the controversies as “trivial.”

Aloof and oblivious to the cronyism of his administration, the incompetence of his Cabinet members and the apparent lack of ethics and fiscal responsibility he and his operatives are exhibiting, Deval Patrick is the ominous reflection of his political semblable Barack Obama.

No wonder why the NRSC has created the following advertisement:

The NRSC now knows what we have always known: Obama is just another Patrick. Indeed, he is just an updated version of a model everyone now knows is failed. He is, in other words, just so many ethereal words.

I am sure Obama will dismiss all the contradictions highlighted in the NRSC advertisement as so much trivia. He will probably claim that we cannot hold him accountable for what he promised during the campaign. After all, all he had uttered before the desperate crowds were “just words.” And I am sure he will become as aloof and oblivious as Patrick has as more and more voters lose confidence in his ability to lead as controversy compounds controversy. Commodities are alluring during a campaign, but they prove to be defunct the moment one tests their ability to govern. All that once appeared to be solid evaporates into so much hot air, I guess. The object that seemed so tangible in its promise provided nothing more than an impalpable mirage.

Obama is quickly becoming a Patrick, who from all indications is dead on arrival in 2010. Certainly if Obama continues on the path he has forged thus far, he too will be a flash in the pan, a wonder who lasted one term. This should be of no surprise, for he and Patrick are cut from the same cloth, hewn from the same block of wood, carved by the same Axelrod. And besides, his/tory has this tendency to repeat itself, rendering the past, the present and the future all into one grand, temporally suspended farce. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, would have made her/story. For she was not assembled in Axelrod’s toxic factory.

I’ll be honest upfront with my opinion. I see them as little parasites made from hijacked taxpayer dollars that members of Congress attach to totally unrelated bills for the purpose of impressing their own constituents. President Obama rallied against the considerable flab involved, but signed the 2009 omnibus spending bill anyway, with 9,309 (representing 7.7 billion dollars) little money suckers clinging to it.

I examined this long list of earmarks, searching for the most outrageous use of our “taxation without representation” at a time when millions are watching their jobs, homes, and retirement nest eggs disappear.

The first contestant was $200,000 for “tattoo removal” (Woodland Hills, CA). However, it’s not quite as nutty as it sounds. The idea is to remove gang and jailhouse marks for those who presumably want to try walking a more positive life path. However, Woodland Hills is hardly a bastion of gangs and crime compared to other parts of the San Fernando Valley. Yet I decided to let it pass.

Same for the 1.7 million for—ironically–controlling hog-created odors (Iowa). Jokes are being passed around about this one. But, if you have ever visited a hog farm you already know that an aroma exists that can cause you to hurl your cookies right where you stand. So, pig stench research didn’t rise to my level of “outrageous.”

The clear winner is a 5.8 million vanity project (one of the higher priced earmarks) to further bloat the ego of Senator Edward Kennedy. Whether you like him or not, you are supporting the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate (Boston, MA). Matt Viser writing for the Boston Globe, described the project status as of last August:

Senator Edward M. Kennedy and several of his closest friends have accelerated plans to build an institute near the John F. Kennedy Library that will be dedicated to research and education about the US Senate and that will use Kennedy’s lengthy political career as a case study.

The group has formed a nonprofit organization, the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, and is planning an aggressive fund-raising campaign that aims to raise at least $50 million and will be spearheaded by prominent Boston businessman Jack Connors.

Actual designs have not been drawn, but officials envision a 40,000-square-foot building, with construction beginning as early as spring 2009.

It is also clear that the original plan called for private donors to finance this project.

Connors said that in the spring, about two weeks before the senator’s cancer diagnosis, Kennedy called and asked him to head up a fund-raising effort. Connors has held several meetings to identify about two dozen “precinct captains” who will raise money. So far, the fund-raising group includes John Sasso, a veteran Democratic consultant; Thomas P. Glynn, the chief operating officer of Partners HealthCare; John Fish, president of Suffolk Construction Co.; and Kenneth R. Feinberg, a Washington lawyer and former Kennedy aide who ran the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund.

Connors said the group is also considering tapping Kennedy’s colleagues in the US Senate, asking them to call key political donors in their home state to raise money for the institute.

In the meantime Kennedy’s friends and former staffers had already collected 20 million from drug companies, hospitals, and insurance companies, which raises some ethical questions for Timothy Noah , writing for Slate. Senator Kennedy will be a central figure in President Obama’s health care plan. Might these donors expect favors?

Many of us admire the positive accomplishments of Senator Kennedy and are sorry he is so ill. But we didn’t volunteer to donate to his pre-memorial project. We are being forced into it when most of us have other desperate priorities. That’s what makes this earmark such a cheap trick to pull on us during such grave times.

The President says he is opposed to earmarks that sneak in, sometimes literally during the night, to raid our treasure.

The future demands that we operate in a different way than we have in the past,” Mr. Obama told reporters before signing the bill in private. “So let there be no doubt: this piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability that the American people have every right to expect and demand.

Well, he caved this year. Let’s watch same time next year.

I end by noting that many, probably most, earmarks are not inherently evil. They say they will help repair roads and bridges, remodel museums, fund programs for children, and the like. (See them all for yourself here .)

But the whole process stinks in my book. There has to be a better way for states and districts to get federal aid for truly necessary projects that does not involve draining blood out of major congressional bills.

“You know,” said McCain, “there’s been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street and it is — people are frightened by these events. Our economy, I think, still the fundamentals of our economy are strong. But these are very, very difficult time. And I promise you, we will never put America in this position again. We will clean up Wall Street. We will reform government.”

Obama jumped al over these comments, and mocked him repeatedly. And was assisted by his little liberal media girlfriends, like here, here and here.

Sen. Barack Obama seized on McCain’s assessment of the health of the economy, blasting the Republican for being “disturbingly out of touch” with the reality that everyday Americans face.

“I just think he doesn’t know,” Obama said in Grand Junction, Colo. “He doesn’t get what’s happening between the mountain in Sedona where he lives and the corridors of Washington where he works…. Why else would he say, today, of all days — just a few hours ago — that the fundamentals of the economy are still strong? Senator — what economy are you talking about?”

Those comments pretty much lost the election for McCain. Obama and his cheering squad turned McCain and Palin into a joke, making McCain appear too out of touch, and senile to grasp the realities facing every day Americans.

So, what did Obama do once he won the election? He scared the bejeezus out of Americans, and robbed them blind. List compliled from Flopping Aces:

“Americans know that our economic recovery will take years — not months.”
- Jan 31.

“I will tell you in terms of what is alarming right now is how fast the economy has been deteriorating…It keeps me up at night and it gets me up.”
- Feb 3.

“If we do not move swiftly to sign the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law, an economy that is already in crisis will be faced with catastrophe.” -
Feb 5.

“If we drag our feet and fail to act, this crisis will turn into a catastrophe. We’ll continue to get devastating job reports like today’s month after month, year after year.”
- Feb 6.

“And our nation will sink into a crisis that at some point we may be unable to reverse.”
- Feb 9.

“…this is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill recession. We are going through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.”
- Feb 9.

“My administration inherited a deficit of over $1 trillion, but because we also inherited the most profound economic emergency since the Great Depression…Those are deficits that could turn a crisis into a catastrophe.”
- Feb 9.

“And the fact of the matter is, is that we are in not just an ordinary recession.”
- Feb 10

“…the greatest economic crisis we’ve seen in decades.”
- Feb 20.

“We are in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression…”
- Oct 7.

He used fear to pass the biggest Generational Theft Act in history.

Obama then came out and said, the national crisis is “not as bad as we think it is”. The checks haven’t even be cashed, hell, written yet, and the economy is not so bad? Why the hell are we spending trillions of dollars, then?

So once the *stimulus package* is passed, and Obama and Pelosi got all the earmarks, and tasty pork they wanted, what does Obama’s top economic advisor say this week?

The fundamentals of the economy are sound.

“But on Sunday, that optimistic message came from economic adviser Christina Romer. When asked during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if the fundamentals of the economy were sound, she replied: “Of course they are sound.”

“The fundamentals are sound in the sense that the American workers are sound, we have a good capital stock, we have good technology,” she said. “We know that – that temporarily we’re in a mess, right? We’ve seen huge job loss, we’ve seen very large falls in GDP. So certainly in the short run we’re in a – in a bad situation.”

And President Emily Litella speaking yesterday:

After meeting with Paul A. Volcker, one of his top economic advisers, Mr. Obama said, “There are a lot of individual families who are experiencing incredible pain and hardship right now.”

“But if we are keeping focused on all the fundamentally sound aspects of our economy,” he added, “all the outstanding companies, workers, all the innovation and dynamism in this economy, then we’re going to get through this. And I’m very confident about that.”

The Times wrote:

Mr. Obama actually came close to using the same language that helped doom the campaign of his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain, who was hammered by Democrats last year for declaring that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” Recognizing the danger in appearing too upbeat, however, the president and his advisers were careful to warn that recovery could take a long time.

Yes, they don’t want to appear too upbeat, they do have their sights on yet another Porkulus Spending Bill.

So, when McCain called the fundamentals strong, he was a senile old idiot, who didn’t know how many houses he owned, he was completely out of touch. But, after Obama scares the crap out of everyone, and gets away with a two trillion dollar multi-generational theft act, the economy is fundamentally sound?

Remember during the debates, when Obama was asked what he would have to give up, in order to save the economy? He didn’t say he would give up anything. And, he hasn’t, has he? He just keeps borrowing, and printing, more money.

Obama really needs to stop complaining that he *inherited* this mess. First of all, he bought this mess. He paid close to a billion dollars for this mess. Secondly, he helped create this mess. He voted, or didn’t bother to show up, for every vote in the Senate, that involved money, including funding the Iraq War, and stimulus packages, that I could find. He helped to create the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac mess, and was one of their biggest recipients of cash. Remember when Barney Frank called the fundamentals of FM/FM fundamentally sound? That should have been mocked! Where was the media on that one? And Obama was closely involved with ACORN, even representing them in a lawsuit.

Obama did NOT inherit this mess. He helped create it. And what he didn’t create, he manipulated to further his agenda, to the tune of almost two trillion dollars.

Rahm Emanuele wasn’t kidding when they said, “never let a serious crisis go to waste.”

(If you haven’t read this article yet, The Sky is Falling, please do so: “Imagine a child falls down a well. Now imagine I offer to lend the parents my ladder to save her, but only if they promise to paint my house. Would you applaud me for not letting a crisis go to waste? Or would you think I’m a jerk, for want of a harsher word not printable in this space?”)

Obama managed to convince people he didn’t vote for the Iraq Resolution, and then convinced everyone we were in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Now he is trying to convince everyone he *inherited* this mess.

He is the biggest Bernie Madoff bamboozler, ever.

Now let me hasten to add that, by all means, the Speaker of the House, third in line of succession to the White House, needs to be able to fly to and from her/his district securely, especially in these dangerous times. BUT – it is the manner in which Speaker Pelosi is treating the Air Force as her personal valet service. And we are paying for it.

I’ll let the Judicial Watch president, Tom Fitton, lay it all out for you (if you don’t have time to watch the video, the link above contains the same information):

Everyone else is cutting back in these difficult times. Speaker Pelosi just makes excuses for her wastefulness. Again, she is entitled to this service, but it is the sense of entitlement with which she uses it that’s the problem: having it on standby and canceling at the last minute (unnecessarily); demanding a certain (most expensive) type of plane; and using it for her family as if it’s the family station wagon, to name a few.

Between this and the Pork House Omnibus Bill Obama is going to sign into law today (and then lecture us on earmarks – spare me already), it is kind of hard to take their “cinch up your belt” rhetoric seriously. Yes, Obama is going to sign the Omnibus Bill with over 8,000 earmarks in it, which he claims he just can’t change because it was written last year. Huh??? He calls it “imperfect,” but he’s signing it anyway!! Um, NEWSFLASH – you can VETO it, Obama!! Just more talking the talk but not getting close to walking the walk from Obama. Big surprise. Hahhaha! Oh, he said in that article that earmarks should receive more scrutiny, but given his wife benefited handsomely from some of HIS earmarks while in IL, there is no way he’s gonna call to abolish them altogether. Anyone who thought he would was just denying reality. Look at his record on it.

So, yeah – all the rest of us need to tighten up our belts, and make some changes. Our elected officials? Not so much. Oh, and Speaker Pelosi? We’re not buying your excuses, either. Stop treating the Air Force like your personal travel service and wasting our money. Obama, do you think you could keep ONE campaign promise?? Like on earmarks? Stop wasting our money already!!

Sheesh. Is it possible that all this time the Republicans have been calling the Democrats “tax and spend” Democrats, they were RIGHT??

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid needs 60 votes to close the debate on the $410 billion dollar omnibus spending bill and bring it to a Senate vote. As of this morning, he is one vote short. A few moderate Republicans that Reid was counting on have yet to climb on board. The GOP has some amendments of their own they would like to add to this bill and are trying to leverage their votes to push their proposals through.

Reid may just have to give in to some Republican demands, thanks to a dissenting vote from his own caucus. Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a member of the Democratic leadership is voting no and is downright pissed off.

His anger has nothing to do with the massive spending by a government already in unfathomable debt or even the 9,000 plus earmarks attached to this drunken Capitol Hill spending spree.

What infuriates Menendez is that when his legislative aides read through the legislation online, they discovered language that eases restrictions on travel to Cuba and importing Cuban goods. Menendez would be the first to admit that he holds a minority view when it comes to dealing with the Castro government. As the son of Cuban immigrants, he has always taken a hard line on Cuban policy. He undoubtedly knew that with the Obama administration in charge, a change in policy was coming, but the way this was handled really has him steamed.

Shailagh Murphy reports in the Washington Post that Menendez even held off support on some administration appointees in protest.

“The process by which these changes have been forced upon this body is so deeply offensive to me, and so deeply undemocratic, that it puts the omnibus appropriations package in jeopardy, in spite of all the other tremendously important funding that this bill would provide,” the enraged son of Cuban immigrants said last week on the Senate floor. Menendez even slapped a hold on a pair of Obama nominees to draw attention to the issue.

Treasury officials, working with Reid’s office, continued yesterday to search for an administrative resolution with Menendez that would ensure a narrow interpretation of the legislative language in order to prevent gaping loopholes from developing. Menendez has pointed out that, had the bill sought significant changes in U.S. policy toward Iran or Venezuela, lawmakers would revolt. “What’s the difference with Cuba?” said Menendez spokesman Afshin Mohamadi.

No doubt, that Reid at some point will wrangle that last vote and everyone on the hill will have their pork and eat it too. He will even find a way to pacify Menendez. Yet, this little incident is just another reminder of why our government is broken to begin with. The Cuban issue is important enough to deserve its own debate on the floor. In typical congressional fashion, it was tacked on to a bill that had nothing to do with the issue. Whoever, added it to the omnibus spending bill was probably figuring that Menendez and his staff would not actually read the whole thing until it was too late.

It’s amazing what happens when your legislators have time (or at least their staffs have time) to read what they are voting on. The Menendez staff probably was going through this bill because lawmakers are starting to feel the heat after the e-mails and phone calls from angry constituents following the stimulus vote. They never expected Cuban policy to be part of the legislation they were reviewing.

Whether or not, the Cuban policy needs change is not the issue. The issue is that it shouldn’t have been in this bill in the first place. So good for Bob Menendez. Make Harry go find his vote somewhere else. It will certainly cost him.

The eruption of street protests around the country against the “stimulus bill”, as depicted in this video, certainly took me by surprise. I never expected anything like this so soon, if at all.

So what happens next? Is this the start of something that is likely to snowball? Will others take to the streets and join in to swell the voice of protest? Or will it all fizzle out as suddenly as it has begun?

Will the unions be next to protest against the new Administration’s policies, as predicted in this video?

In the past I have seen many protests by people from the left of the political spectrum, but how often do we see scenes like this from… I think it would be wrong to call it the political right, because it is obviously not only Republicans who are protesting against such massive expenditure in a bill that was voted for by people who had no time to read it, let alone digest it. Am I wrong in thinking these street protests are something new?

It will be interesting, to say the least, to see where we go from here. It will also be interesting to see if Youtube allows this video to remain where it is.

Ben Bernanke’s testimony over the past two days gives us our best clue yet about where the administration and the Fed are going with bank rescue. And the answer seems to be … nowhere.

Simon Johnson and James Kwak read it the same way I do:

This is another sign of the serious brainpower that has been expended on finding ways to avoid or minimise government ownership of banks, and to avoid the slightest possibility of offending shareholders – shareholders whose shares have positive value primarily because of the expectation of a further government bail-out.

And The Economist’s Free Exchange puts it bluntly:

At this stage, I joked, I’d be just as happy with them just saying, “We have a strategy, we will continue to inject capital to prop up zombie banks indefinitely. That’s pretty much the whole plan and we’re counting on it bringing the financial sector back to life someday, somehow”. Is it just me or is that pretty much what Ben Bernanke said yesterday?

No, it’s not just you.

Well, that’s good to know. I mean, it seems like a whole bunch of us have been saying this makes no sense, and we don’t want our hard-earned taxpaying dollars going down the drain, but we felt like voices crying out in the wilderness. Perhaps we are not alone afterall:

I’d add a political-economy point. Here’s Noam Scheiber, in the new TNR economics blog:

Yesterday afternoon I spoke to a senior Democratic aide in the Senate who repeatedly emphasized that, the way things stand now, it would be almost impossible to get another cent for the banks. Congress has “bailout fatigue,” the aide said.

Indeed. As long as capital injections are seen as a way to bail out the people who got us into this mess (which they are as long as the banks haven’t been put into receivership), the political system won’t, repeat, won’t be willing to come up with enough money to make the system healthy again. At most we’ll get a slow intravenous drip that’s enough to keep the banks shambling along.

More and more, it looks as if we’re headed for the decade of the living dead.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. But like I said, I’m not a major economist who won a Nobel Peace Prize. Krugman is and did, so I’m gonna listen to him.

So speaking of banks wanting more money, guess who is back at the trough asking for more money from us, the taxpayers I’ll give you a hint – it’s an alphabet company. Yep – you got it, AIG:

Hell freakin’ yeah, they’re back. Some nerve, too, if you ask me, especially after their lavish spending ways. They want us to continue to subsidize them when tey have not demonstrated any fiscal restraint or responsibility?? Are you kidding me?

And while I am on this topic, it is high past time for the Democrats to stop blaming this situation totally on the Republicans. I can understand WHY they are trying to convince everyone that they had absolutely NOTHING to do with this, but the reality is that they have been in charge of BOTH Houses of Congress for over two years now. Where was their oversight of the SEC, in its non-existent oversight of people like Bernie “Made-Off”? Where were they when Franklin Raines ran Fannie Mae into the ground (and Raines, who left in disgrace, was one of Obama’s advisers)? Where were they when Jim Johnson ran Freddie Mac into the ground (and we know where Tim Johnson is – he was on Obama’s Veepstakes Search)?

So, yeah – Bush was horrible – we know that. But for the past 2 years, the DEMOCRATS have been the ones in charge of the purse-strings and the oversight, so stop the blame game, start taking some responsibility, and STOP HANDING OUT OUR MONEY LEFT AND RIGHT!!! Enough already!!

And that ESPECIALLY goes for you, Nancy Pelosi, with this new $410 BILLION dollar package chock-full of pork the House is proposing!! ENOUGH!!!