Apparently the Democratic party has a different meaning for the word “dialogue” than do the rest of us, so continues to use silly sandbox games as a distracting smokescreen tactic to cover up their continuing attempts to implement what some of us see as treacherous policies.

Foxnews.com reports today that another web site has come online for the sole purpose of “making fun” of Rush Limbaugh.  Hosted by none other than those fun-lovin’ folks at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.  Yes, those are your hard-earned campaign contributions hard at at work making this nation a great place to live, my friends.

You’d think with the nation in such “crisis” they’d be focused on matters that really and truly affect national security, financial or otherwise, instead of continuing to participate in a childish pissing contest with someone who disagrees with them.

I think they are the ones who owe the apologies.

I am rather at a loss to write about the audacity of  this latest follow-the-House’s-lead Senate stunt. 

Question: On the Amendment (Coburn Amdt. No. 623 as Modified )
Vote Number:	80	Vote Date:	March 4, 2009, 06:07 PM
Required For Majority:	1/2	Vote Result:	Amendment Rejected
Amendment Number:	S.Amdt. 623 to H.R. 1105 (Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009)
Statement of Purpose:	To prohibit taxpayer dollars from being earmarked to 14 clients of a lobbying firm under Federal investigation for making campaign donations in exchange for political favors for the group’s clients.

Vote Counts:	YEAs	43
	NAYs	52
	Not Voting	4

 

That “lobbying firm under Federal investigation” is, of course, PMA Group.  A lobbying firm.  They give members of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee campaign contributions, and in turn their clients are rewarded big, fat government contracts.  Government contracts paid for, of course, with OUR tax dollars.

It’s such a profitable way to do business there’s little surprise that someone who came up through the Illinois and Chicago political ranks like the President is going back on his campaign promises to stop earmarks.  For example, and I’ll keep it simple since the number of zeros involved – both monetary and Congress critters – is so big, let’s say I tell you that if you give me $2.30 I will turn around and give you $100. 

You’d think you’d hit the hit the Lotto jackpot, wouldn’t you? 

Well, that’s exactly the dirty business going on here.  And the President continues to look the other way as the Democratic majority condones it.

Someone call Lassie.  Quick.

It was a tough choice, but instead of tuning into Rush Limbaugh’s radio show today I decided to go for the comic relief of the the Senate finance committee meeting that put Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the hot seat, asking questions ranging from why the never-ending bailout of AIG (there is “less risk” to the American economy in bailing them out than letting AIG reap the “consequences” of its actions; “millions of depend on AIG” so in the “government’s judgement” the “effect on confidence” is much “more dramatic” than the “failure of an investment bank”) to questions about the bailout of the auto industry (which were muffled due to Senator Stabenow’s head being stuck firmly in a very inappropriate place).

When pressed about the growing gall of tax-paying Americans watching their money continue to be handed out like candy to those who pay no taxes, our legendary little tax evader made reference to the Obama adminstration’s investigation into closing off-shore bank account loopholes but, like a good little foot soldier, Geithner kept going back to the mantra of the country needing a “comprehensive strategy” to deal with it.

We sure do, Timmy.  But as Senator Orrin Hatch pointed out, Geithner was head of the Federal Reserve in New York when Wall Street slipped on its banana peel.   Senator Hatch noted that the “economy, while not strong, was moderate” under Bush, and President Obama continually referring to “recent events” doesn’t seem exactly fair when Geithner was “the overseer” during the Bush administration.

Obama may be running, but at this, Geithner was squirming.  His response to Senator Hatch was a masterful mix of weasel words.  He blamed “systematic failures” and claims (rightfully) that “a lot of things contributed” to the meltdown.  But instead of owning his own role in the financial industry cluster, he then went on to say that “the Federal Reserve was not given responsibility for overseeing investment banks, insurance companies”, etc. that were a “critical part of the crisis”.  And repeated again that “comprehensive conservative oversight” was needed.

So none of these Wall Street failures during Geithner’s tenure are considered “critical” any more?

March 2008:  Investment bank Bear Stearns collapses from losses in subprime mortgage obligations and derivatives transactions; J.P. Morgan Chase buys Bear Stearns in a deal arranged by the Federal Reserve for the dramatically reduced value of $2 a share, with the Federal Reserve guaranteeing J.P. Morgan against $30 billion in Bear Stearns asset losses.

September 2008:  Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers closes doors in bankruptcy after the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve refuse to arrange a merger plan, a bailout or a guarantee program to save the Wall Street giant.

September 2008:  The Bank of America buys Wall Street investment bank Merrill Lynch in a $50 billion deal that saves Merrill Lynch from having to declare bankruptcy.

September 2008:  The Federal Reserve extends to insurance giant American International Group, or AIG, an $85 billion loan that saves it from going bankrupt from derivatives loses in a massive $441 billion exposure to credit default swaps.

November 2008:  Citibank received $45 billion through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, plus Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and FDIC guarantees on $306 billion in troubled assets held by the bank.

January 2009:  Morgan Stanley takes over Citibank’s Smith Barney investment unit as Citibank unravels the “financial supermarket” conglomerate accumulated when Sandy Weill combined Travelers Insurance, investment bank Smith Barney and Citibank to form Citigroup in the 1990s.

Guess Lassie doesn’t need to bring any rope.

And apparently, it isn’t the government’s problem, either.

Those who feared the worst with TARP now get to watch it play out in slow-motion as our government attempts to “fairly” untangle the labyrinth that created the housing mess in the first place.

Due to it’s (what else?) “complexity”, “tough” eligibility restrictions, and the possibility of lawsuits as mortgage investors fear losses from servicers willing to “downgrade” and lock in payment terms when foreclosure would be more profitable, there will be delays and it is expected some needy homeowners facing foreclosure won’t receive help.

So how’s that hope working for you, anyway?

According to Foxnews.com, “Washington plans to soon pour $5 million into a national media campaign aimed at 18-to-30 year olds, outlining the benefits of marriage and tips on having a healthy one. ”

I don’t think this is quite the kind of stimulus Americans were expecting.

It’s rather amusing to see the Democrats frantically scurrying around like rats exposed to a bright light as they try and undo some strange perception of damage after Rush Limbaugh’s address to CPAC on Saturday.  Everyone from Rahm Emanuel to Robert Gibbs have been taking pot shots; as if their opinion means any more than does Rush Limbaugh’s.

Even Michael Steele, chairman of Republican National Committee, had to get his 15 minutes of fame by referring to Rush’s speech as “inciteful” and “ugly” but excusing it because Rush is “merely” an entertainer.

Puh-leese.  This dogs-peeing-on-trees behavior is ridiculous.  But it’s exactly why more and more people are becoming more and more disenchanted with both the Democrats and the Republicans.

I happen to agree with Rush that we, the people, need a strong, “conservative” candidate to run in 2012.  But I am more and more convinced that such a conservative will not be found in the ranks of the Republican party any more than it can come from within the Democratic party.  As has been said, to be conservative is not to aspire to any particular party affiliation, no; to be a conservative is a mindset.  Milktoast Michael Steele misses the mark with his hip-hop aspirations for the Republican party as widely as do Democrats like Pop-Up Pelosi.

We need a return to basics.  We don’t need more government and we certainly don’t need more government employees – elected or hired.  We don’t need the continual illusions of divisiveness created just to make up for a personal lack of responsibility and/or fortitude.

We don’t need some self-proclaimed Messiah and we certainly don’t need another Emperor running around naked.  What we need, truthfully, is a good, old-fashioned hero.  A person who doesn’t judge their own intellect by how many pieces of paper are hung in frames on their wall or by how many favors they can curry by the number of names they can drop.  Someone who is sensible and honest, fair and humble.  Someone who has a reading comprehension level of at least a 5th grader and the ability to do simple addition and subtraction.  Someone with at least a modicum of common sense.

Above all, we need a real American.  And though there are many flitting around the beltway and sashaying around governor’s mansions who like to think they fit that bill, I’m afraid they are already part of the problem and therefore automatically disqualified.

It’s time to clean house and start all over again.

Pass the butter, folks; the President’s on a roll.  Ron Kirk, the president’s choice to be U.S. trade representative, owes an estimated $10,000 in back taxes.

I don’t think I’ll be asking him to buy me a lottery ticket any time soon.

But then again, crime does seem to be paying.

This is how you define progress, folks.  This is that long-anticipated, hoped-for change.  No longer do we get just an “Oops!”;  instead the mantra echoing high and low has become:  “This is last year’s business.”

Taxpayers for Common Sense has identified 8,570 earmarks in the latest $410 billion spending bill – totaling some $7.7 billion; Democrats say the number is $3.8 billion. 

What’s a few billion between bipartisan friends, eh?

Apparently not much.  The White House reported today that Mr. No-Earmarks Transparency (my middle name is “Fiscal Responsibility”) himself, that fairweather barometer of hope and change, President Obama, intends to sign the bill into law.

Once again the President has reneged one of his pet, never-ending campaign promises, using the flimsy excuse that this is “last year’s business” (Peter Orszag) and this is “last year’s business” (Rahm Emanuel) to absolve himself of living up to the standards he himself set.

There’s a four-letter word for this, folks.

L – I – A – R

Yesiree.  Hope is an amazing thing.  It is what allowed people to survive something as horrible as the Holocaust (all denials of it by some, in particular some of Charles Freeman, Jr.’s Middle Eastern buddies, aside). 

Hope is, in fact, what created this country.

And it was the deliberate, well-considered, experiential-based actions of those hopeful few 222 years ago that allowed that international man of mystery, Barack Hussein Obama, to become President, too.

Yet it is a truth that hope can be misplaced.  And that the drivers of even the most audacious hope can be, at best, misguided.  One definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over but continue to expect different results. 

This, then, explains the current Democratic mindset.  Can’t pay the bills?  Spend more.  If that doesn’t work, spend even more.  And when questioned about the continuing failure, blow smoke & rhetoric in an attempt to align yourself with a Republican (Reagan) who took the opposite tack that succeeded.

What it doesn’t explain, however, is when the spending sprees are accompanied by more and more laws that snare the public in a net of more and more indebtedness (dependence) on bigger and bigger government.  All created in direct contrast to the deliberate, well-considered, experiental-based hope foundation upon which this country was based.

That’s where the opposite definition of insanity comes in.  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

This, then, explains in part the so-called “liberal” mindset.  Needing to feel important but unable to see through some strange and self-created sense of inadequacy, the only way to accomplish this is not through individual efforts but by that most childish game of tearing down others to their level.  Claiming superiority through some nebulous advantage of “higher” education (sic) that in the end provides little more than weasel words designed to confuse the average person who has been trained to believe what they see and read in a so-called “free press”, without any real-world experience these self-perceived superiors must turn the real world into a nothing more than a science lab where “models” are tested over and over, despite their continuing failure.  At best, their purpose is wheel-spinning “creation” for the sake of “creation”, at worst, it is an attempt to “fix” something that doesn’t need their insulated bubble-grown help in the first place.

Such Democratic, liberal “hope” really can be called audacity.  In fact, it is the height of audacity.  I don’t believe that Americans are, in general, so stupid as to believe that we can actually spend our way out of this toxic, phantom money mess but I don’t believe that enough Americans have yet reached the set-point of understanding that it is their failure to participate fully in the foundational elements of our government that has allowed things to stray so far from the original intent of our Founding Fathers.

There is no such thing as being too “busy” to take the time to actually read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and to read the Federalist papers that made perfectly clear the intentions of the Founding Fathers.  From such reading would come a realization that “conservative” is not a party, but instead a mindset.  One of independence, one of individualism, one where those who can are allowed to do, thereby helping everyone.  You don’t need to be a “Constitutional law professor” to understand that this Republic was not founded on any principle of big government.  Those who would tell you otherwise are in it hoping solely for their own gain.

All at your expense, of course.

And that is, indeed, the audacity of hope.

Back before his inauguration, on January 13, 2009, President Obama hired Michael S. Smith to redecorate the White House and the Orchid office.  You remember Mr. Smith, don’t you?  He’s the high-falutin’ Hollywood and Wall Street decorator who created that $1.2 million office for Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain.  The $1.2 million office that sported the infamous “commode on legs”.  That little spending spree by Thain prompted this remark from the President a week later, “…taxpayer money should not go toward renovating offices.”

Rumors of Pottery Barn White House decor or no Pottery Barn White House decor, I’d like the President to answer one, simple question.  What is the difference between what you are doing and what Thain did?

If there’s some reasonable justification for spending any money at all right now on a perfectly functional office while “500 million” people (sic) are losing their jobs each month, then I suppose there’s also one for sending Desirée Glapion Rogers, assistant to the President and social secretary, to attend New York Fashion Week.  And sure enough, according to a White House aide, we can rest assured that it wasn’t a shopping expedition for Michelle.  “Desirée was in New York on a fact-finding mission.  She’s acting as a cultural liaison for the White House; she’s researching fashion and music.”

Wow.  Let’s all act surprised.  Useless “research” being done on my dime.  And on your dime, too, buddy.  Even though this “economic crisis” is so damned bad neither one of us have a dime to spare any more.

And apparently all that explains why newly-hired decorater Mr. Smith threw a big, fancy bash for Ms. Rogers at the Four Seasons last week.  Though it’s being touted how he paid for it out of his own pocket, seeing as how he’s being paid by the government now, those pockets are really filled with American taxpayers’ money.

And the wheels on the bus go ’round and ’round….