The Smoke Break

You want some brie with that whine?

Serving The Czar Czar

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There’s word getting out onto the street that GE has not only been rabidly slobbering all over President Obama in order to further its executives’ fortunes by pushing for cap & trade, but that they are flexing their corporate muscle to spank journalists of varying stripes who attempt to report facts instead of pushing the pablum-laced, White House-contrived fiction.  Particularly when those facts put GE and its subsidiaries in a less-than-favorable light.

The latest tidbit involves Jeffrey Immelt and Jeff Zucker orchestrating a GE boycott of their news subsidiaries’ rival media outlet Nielsen after a Nielsen-owned The Hollywood Reporter journalist wrote a much-publicized story about the rather lively GE shareholder meeting in April.  That well-attended Orlando, Florida GE shareholder meeting where many people wanted to know whether or not Immelt actually told GE’s news operations (e.g. MSNBC) to be “less critical” of President Obama and his administration.

Of course Hollywood lives and dies on both fiction and gossip, however, when one considers the bias of GE’s news outlets towards the current administration, and the fact that the FOXNews staff of the Bill O’Reilly show is now investigating GE’s possible involvement in supplying weapons material to Iran, well…it doesn’t take a healthy dose of imagination to wonder whether this is yet another case where truth is stranger than fiction. 

Washington, D.C. seems to be taking its cue from Hollywood because the May unemployment numbers were preceded by quite a lot of gladhanding that the numbers were down.  Truth is that the May unemployment numbers are higher than those well-spun previews and are, in fact, higher than if we’d done nothing at all to “stimulate” the economy.  Which is even higher still than the numbers projected by the administration.

Last thought is of the word that must have finally given nightmares to the Romanovs.  That word is “czars”.  The Republic of the United States of America now has more and more czars every day; popping up faster than Nancy Pelosi during an Obama campaign speech, each one being given the helm of what used to be considered private or individual state business.  Not only is the word itself and its connections to monarchy, imperialism, and tyranny disturbing, that it is manifesting in a free, democratic Republic should sound an alarm to even the most addicted Kool-Aid drinkers.  No one elects them, they are hand-picked by and accountable to no one but Barack Hussein Obama.  Rather his very own personal court lackies; in reality more government employees on the taxpayer dole with absolutely no incentive to safeguard citizen interests or the Constitution.  It is starting to sound beyond ridiculous – regulatory czar, pay czar, energy czar, car czar, health care czar, intelligence czar, urban affairs czar, drug affairs czar, border czar, even a Great Lakes czar. 

Does this make President Obama the czar czar?

Such is the stuff of which revolutions are made.

Tough Love

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I love best those who can both think rationally and express their thoughts clearly and simply.  Those who can take an idea and put it into context, who wield both the tools of imagination and logic with elegance and then have the courage to manifest them.

Andrew Klavan is one of those people.  So while my own thoughts – the mixing bowl currently filled with Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, affirmative action, prejudice, the Constitution, hypocrisy – are figuratively being stirred and then must be allowed to set before dishing them out, I thought it best to simply share Mr. Klavan’s latest piece for Pajamasmedia.

It’s the best 5 minutes you’ll spend today.

Different But Equally Racist?

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The White House has actually warned folks to “be careful” as President Obama’s choice to replace Supreme Court Justice Souter, Sonia Sotomayor, begins the confirmation process.  It seems that because Sotomayor is a Hispanic woman, that is such a big deal in and of itself it should trump any all legitimate questions and their answers – such as looking closely at her on the job performance – when deciding if she is really and truly qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.

Frankly, boys and girls, I watch this nonsense and shake my head.  Anyone who uses things like race or economic circumstances in an attempt to elevate themselves above others is, at best, a fool.  To claim that your race or gender makes you somehow wiser than those who are different from you is a racist statement.  Kudos to ANYONE who works hard and makes something productive out of themselves.  We all know that a piece of paper from a prestigious university has no bearing on common sense or eventual life outcome; if you want to talk about real wisdom I will bet you can find more in a ditch digger than in some alleged “Constitutional law professors”. 

But I digress. 

Affirmative action and equal opportunity are a direct result of freedoms provided in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  It is on a level playing field that every nominee must be judged; without prejudice, without discrimination, blindly – and those who are found to be lacking in objective judicial abilities must be sent packing.

Judge Sotomayor does not appear to be an appropriate choice for the Supreme Court simply because she is on record as advocating legislating from the bench, and because of her racist statements.  Both are bad news when being considered for a job that calls for upholding the Constitution and doing so without prejudice, meaning doing so blindly.  It makes no difference that she is Hispanic.  It makes no difference that she is female.  Lady Justice doesn’t discriminate, Lady Justice is not divisive, and upholding that literal objectivity is simply a fundamental test that Sonia Sotomayor does not pass.

National Archive Data Theft A Dangerous Red Herring

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It’s now been reported that a hard drive with “massive amounts of sensitive data from the Clinton administration” has gone missing from the National Archives.  The theft apparently occurred sometime between October 2008 and March 2009 and contained 1 terabyte of data…

…including Social Security numbers, addresses, and Secret Service and White House operating procedures, congressional officials said Tuesday.

One of former Vice President Al Gore’s three daughters is among those whose Social Security numbers were on the drive, but it was not clear which one. Other information includes logs of events, social gatherings and political records.

Archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper said in a written statement that the agency was preparing to notify affected individuals of the breach. The representative of former President Bill Clinton has been notified, but Cooper gave no indication whether the former president’s personal information was on the hard drive.

“The drive contains an as yet unknown amount of personally identifiable information of White House staff and visitors,” the statement added.

The drive is missing from the Archives facility in College Park, Md., a Washington suburb. …the Archives had been converting the Clinton administration information to a digital records system…[and]…the hard drive was left on a shelf and unused for an uncertain period of time.  When the employee tried to resume work, the hard drive was missing.

Committee staff members were told there is a copy of the massive amount of information, but Archives officials have only just begun to learn what was on the drive.

Coming just as former President Clinton is named as U.N. envoy to Haiti; coming just as  Congress approves the final version of a bill intended to enhance enforcement of financial crimes, including creating commission to investigate the causes of the financial crisis, the beginnings of which point to Clinton-era policies and practices; just as other witch hunts about Democrat-approved interrogation of terrorists are being demanded; coming just as the Democrat-derided Bush-era Homeland Security practices foil yet another terrorist attack on American soil; and combined with President Obama’s “do as I say, not as I do” definition of “transparency in government” and track record of gaffes, flubs, blunders, and dangerous policies, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to ask just what potentially-incriminating evidence might be included in that missing data and – most importantly – why is it only being reported as missing now?  Now that Congress has pushed Waxman’s enfant terrible cap & trade legislation out of committee.  Now that the other parts of the world are developing a nervous tic as they watch Iran aggressively move forward with its nuclear weapons program and Obama gives Iran until the end of the year to decide if it “wants” to “cooperate”. 

It’s a serious matter, this data loss.  But it’s also a red herring being used to distract Americans from the truth.  The truth that things in Washington – and even President Obama – aren’t what the administration wants us to see.  The truth, as I and others have noted before, that despite their own foibles at least Bush and Cheney kept America safe and Obama is throwing Israel under the bus in order to force Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran in pure self-defense.  Thereby throwing the world into political chaos, if not outright war; which, boys and girls, has historically been the “best” way to American economic recovery.

Deja vu….

One Guy Gets It

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Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock has quite rightly decided that an investment in anything run by the Obama adminstration isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.  In an article at WIBC today, it’s been reported that the state’s fund managers have been told that bonds issued by banks and automakers taking federal bailout money are no longer to be considered as an investment vehicle for the state.

In the real world, when a company goes into bankruptcy it is the bond holders who are normally paid first.  That is part and parcel of buying bonds, and why they are considered a very low-risk investment.  But the Obama-driven Chrysler bankruptcy cut that payment down to 29 cents on the dollar.

Mourdock says the Obama Administration’s handling of Chrysler’s debt wiped out $896,000 in value from the state’s investment of the proceeds from the 2006 lease of the Indiana Toll Road, and $147,400 from the Indiana State Police Pension Fund.  Mourdock oversees both portfolios.

Mourdock says the Teachers Retirement Fund, which is administered separately, lost $4.6 million.

It’s only common sense to not throw good money after bad. 

Too bad Washington doesn’t get it.  While the bankruptcy judge has denied the motion filed by the Indiana investors to postpone the sale of Chrysler because it gives preferential treatment to other stakeholders instead of properly addressing the needs of its secured lenders, the government is going to lend Chrysler $600 million to cover potential losses incurred by GMAC Financial Services related to Chrysler loans and $260 million to replace funds transferred to its Canadian operations.

And lest it go unnoticed, it’s also being reported that the government is getting ready to give GMAC $7.5 billion (though GMAC still needs some $11.5 billion in capital reserves, according to the government’s stress tests), and by exercising options on its preferred stock, will become a majority shareholder with voting rights.  Effectively creating their own bank holding company.  Designed, of course, to lend people money for cars no one is going to want to buy.

So, How’s That (Not) Working For You?

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Here’s a real-life look at all that Democrat-driven “hope and change”.  Of course, the Obama administration will continue to claim it’s only trying to clean up the mess it inheirited, conveniently forgetting that most of the administration, including the President, voted to create the mess in the first place, but you’d think that after pouring all the TARP and stimulus monies into the economy and “reluctantly” taking over the banks and the automakers, as well as threatening any and everyone who dares to make a lot of money while increasing taxes on everyone and basically bankrupting the entire country, things would be in a little better shape by now than this, wouldn’t you?

 

Blue state average:  8.61%

Red state average:  7.17%

Unemployment Rates for States
Monthly Rankings
Seasonally Adjusted
Mar. 2009*

Rank State Rate
51 MICHIGAN 13
50 OREGON 12
49 SOUTH CAROLINA 11
48 CALIFORNIA 11
47 NORTH CAROLINA 11
46 RHODE ISLAND 11
45 NEVADA 10
44 INDIANA 10
42 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 9.8
42 KENTUCKY 9.8
40 FLORIDA 9.7
40 OHIO 9.7
39 TENNESSEE 9.6
38 MISSISSIPPI 9.4
36 GEORGIA 9.2
36 WASHINGTON 9.2
35 ILLINOIS 9.1
34 ALABAMA 9
33 MISSOURI 8.7
31 ALASKA 8.5
31 WISCONSIN 8.5
30 NEW JERSEY 8.3
29 MINNESOTA 8.2
28 MAINE 8.1
24 ARIZONA 7.8
24 MASSACHUSETTS 7.8
24 NEW YORK 7.8
24 PENNSYLVANIA 7.8
23 DELAWARE 7.7
21 COLORADO 7.5
21 CONNECTICUT 7.5
20 VERMONT 7.2
19 HAWAII 7.1
18 IDAHO 7
16 MARYLAND 6.9
16 WEST VIRGINIA 6.9
15 VIRGINIA 6.8
14 TEXAS 6.7
13 ARKANSAS 6.5
12 NEW HAMPSHIRE 6.2
10 KANSAS 6.1
10 MONTANA 6.1
8 NEW MEXICO 5.9
8 OKLAHOMA 5.9
7 LOUISIANA 5.8
5 IOWA 5.2
5 UTAH 5.2
4 SOUTH DAKOTA 4.9
3 NEBRASKA 4.6
2 WYOMING 4.5
1 NORTH DAKOTA 4.2

 

p = preliminary.

NOTE: Rates shown are a percentage of the labor force.  Data refer to place of residence. Estimates for the current month are subject to revision the following month.

Of course, anyone with a modicum of sense realizes things are going to continue to get worse as the administration continues to pay back the labor unions, continue to cut the manufacturing sector off at the knees (and the rest of us by default) with it’s global warming nonsense, drag down the private sector with interference in corporate governance, and kill us (literally and financially) with nationalized health care.  Which of course means that the 2010 elections are going to be a bloodbath, with my personal prognostication being that the above chart will turn – appropriately – solid red in 2011.  Hopefully with lessons learned as well.

If The Shoe Were On The Other Foot

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What if Sarah Palin had been elected President instead of Barack Obama?   How do you think the media would cover gaffes, breaches of etiquette and protocol, sheer economic stupidity, and blinding egocentricism?

Victor Davis Hanson shares a glimpse of such an alternative reality.

Obama’s Economic Waffles

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On the breakfast menu this morning:  waffles.

President Obama’s remarks yesterday at a Rio Rancho, New Mexico townhall meeting about credit card reform:

“I just want to make a little commentary about the media here, if you don’t mind.  When Congress included in last year’s budget a whole bunch of earmarks, you remember there was a week worth of stories about how terrible these earmarks were,” the president recounted. “You remember this…a week’s worth of stories: ‘Oh, these earmarks, this is what’s blowing up the deficit, this is terrible,’ blah, blah, blah.  And yet, as I said before, that was less than 1 percent of that entire budget that had been signed.  When we find $17 billion worth of cuts in programs, what do the same folks say?  They say, ‘Oh, that’s nothing.’…That’s not significant.  That’s not important.’

“Well, you can’t have it both ways.  If those earmarks were important, then this money is important, too.”

President Obama’s remarks in March upon signing the pork-filled 2009 Omnibus spending bill (with roughly 9,000 earmarks totaling nearly $8 billion):

“I am signing an imperfect omnibus bill because it is necessary for the ongoing functions of government. But I also view this as a departure point for more far-reaching change.”

President Obama’s remarks during the 3rd presidential debate in Hempstead, New York:

“Now, Senator McCain talks a lot about earmarks.  That’s one of the centerpieces of his campaign. Earmarks account for 0.5 percent of the total federal budget. There’s no doubt that the system needs reform and there are a lot of screwy things that we end up spending money on, and they need to be eliminated. But it’s not going to solve the problem. ”

President Obama’s remarks about his $3.5 trillion budget proposal:

“The 121 budget cuts we are announcing today will save taxpayers nearly $17 billion next year alone.  And even by Washington standards, that should be considered real money.”

A comment about President Obama’s $3.5 trillion budget proposal by an administration official:

“$17 billion dollars, I think, to anyone’s accounting, is a significant amount of money. Again, that’s in one year alone.” 

It makes sense that Obama keeps the emphasis on the red herring of just what constitutes “significant” and “important”.  Because if people understood what is behind the number, they’d see that all this talk of “change” continues to be nothing more than keeping the country on the same, well-worn and dangerous path we’ve been on for years.

As the Wall Street Journal points out:

The added cost of new programs detailed in Mr. Obama’s budget appendix will swamp the $17 billion of potential savings anticipated from eliminating or cutting back 121 programs, enumerated in a separate document.

The White House on Monday will release a revised deficit projection to take into account technical and economic changes that will almost certainly widen its February forecasts of a record deficit of $1.8 trillion for fiscal 2009, and $1.2 trillion in the fiscal year that begins in October.

Even if the president could eliminate the entire defense budget, along with domestic discretionary programs in 2009, the $1.3 trillion of savings would still leave a $445 billion budget deficit. 

Well, President Obama, if we can’t “have it both ways”, then neither can you.  And, by the way, yes, I DO mind your little ongoing commentaries about the media.  It is your job to uphold the Constitution and it is the media’s job to report on how you do or do not do it.  If you don’t like the fact your progressivism and your lying results in criticism,  you’ve no one to blame but yourself.

Pass the syrup, please.

Unsustainable Unionization

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My personal opinion is that unions have long outlived their usefulness.  Nowhere is it more obvious than in the case of the unionization of government workers.  The Wall Street Journal reports:

A study in 2005 by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute estimated that the average public-sector worker earned 46% more in salary and benefits than comparable private-sector workers. The gap has only continued to grow. For example, state and local worker pay and benefits rose 3.1% in the last year, compared to 1.9% in the private sector, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

But the real power of the public sector is showing through in this economic crisis. Some five million private-sector workers have lost their jobs in the last year alone, and their unemployment rate is above 9% according to the BLS. By contrast, public-sector employment has grown in virtually every month of the recession, and the jobless rate for government workers is a mere 2.8%. For anyone who thinks such low unemployment numbers are good news, remember that the bulging public sector must be paid for with revenues that most governments don’t currently have.

Must I type really it out loud?  These “public sector” worker are government workers and are paid by our hard-earned tax dollars.  And no matter how dire the straights in which we find ourselves, their unions continue to demand higher pay and more benefits, despite the fact many are already protected by civil service laws.  The net result is higher taxes, of course, as President Obama increases the budgets of unionized agencies, and Labor Secretary Solis tells unionized government workers to push their Congress critters to pass the EFCA:

The way to “put trust and faith” back into a system of employer-employee relations that has for years favored management “is by making sure we pass EFCA,” Solis told some 700 AFSCME leaders and activists. “So when you go home, make sure you call your legislators and you tell them they will be doing the right thing to allow people to associate” by forming a union.

She declared the Obama administration will hire more people in the Labor Department to make sure “all our laws are respected and enforced.”

“So I’m telling you,” Solis added, “there is a new sheriff in town – a sheriff who cares about working-class people, brings respect back into the workplace and allows more people to associate with unions if they want to collectively bargain. I’m talking about EFCA. I’m talking about the opportunities for that bill to pass. And I’m talking about the means for us to strengthen our unions.”

And this, boys and girls, is yet another step down that yellow brick road to fascism.

GE Sells Out Shareholders To Obama Administration

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Did anyone wonder why GE Capital received $140 billion from the government in order to stay in business even though they are NOT a bank?  Their latest business initiative, “Healthymagination”, is the reason.  With Tom Daschle on board, and working with Intel to ready various “tools”, GE is smugly and firmly positioning itself to help President Obama nationalize health care to the tune of some $75 – $100 billion in contracts to computerize the nation’s health care records.  Among other things.  Because, according to GE CEO Jeff Immelt, we aren’t just experiencing an economic cycle, we’re deliberately doing a “reset”. “People who understand that will prosper in the future, and people who don’t understand that will get left behind.”

Left behind like the old people in England and other countries who can’t afford their country’s nationalized health care.  Left behind like those with certain diseases that just aren’t “cost effective” to treat promptly in England.

From the healthyimaging.com website:

GE also is engaging experts and leaders on policy and programs to create a GE Health Advisory Board, which will include former U.S. Senators Bill Frist and Tom Daschle, as well as Andrew von Escenbach, MD, former commissioner of the FDA.

To increase its focus on consumer-driven healthcare, Immelt mentioned the recent GE partnership with Intel to provide products to remotely monitor the health of seniors and those with chronic conditions. Now, through GE’s media network, the company said it also will focus on healthcare broadcasting, namely:

  • NBC Universal and NBC News will make a commitment to bring health and wellness content to consumers in the form of more than 5,000 televised reports annually on health and wellness and companion online tools.
  • MSNBC will launch a new, daily program dedicated solely to health information, beginning in June. The program will be anchored by NBC News Chief Medical Editor Nancy Snyderman, MD, who will tackle everything from health and wellness tips and medical breakthroughs to examining health policy.
  • The Cleveland Clinic will join with GE and NBC to conduct research that seeks to better understand important factors that move consumers from being aware of a health condition via the media to actually changing their behaviors.

GE will partner with governments and other companies to build a “healthy work site” certification program. Immelt said GE will turn its 175 health centers into wellness clinics and increase the use of employee incentives and decision support for health and prevention, providing personal health records to employees to identify health risks and track behaviors.

Obama validates it in this email sent to his supporters:

 
The White House, Washington
   Good afternoon, You are receiving this email because you signed up at WhiteHouse.gov. My staff and I plan to use these messages as a way to directly communicate about important issues and opportunities, and today I have some encouraging updates about health care reform. The Vice President and I just met with leaders from the House of Representatives and received their commitment to pass a comprehensive health care reform bill by July 31. We also have an unprecedented commitment from health care industry leaders, many of whom opposed health reform in the past. Monday, I met with some of these health care stakeholders, and they pledged to do their part to reduce the health care spending growth rate, saving more than two trillion dollars over the next ten years – around $2,500 for each American family. Then on Tuesday, leaders from some of America’s top companies came to the White House to showcase innovative ways to reduce health care costs by improving the health of their workers. Now the House and Senate are beginning a critical debate that will determine the health of our nation’s economy and its families. This process should be transparent and inclusive and its product must drive down costs, assure quality and affordable health care for everyone, and guarantee all of us a choice of doctors and plans. 

Reforming health care should also involve you. Think of other people who may want to stay up to date on health care reform and other national issues and tell them to join us here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/EmailUpdates 

Health care reform can’t come soon enough. We spend more on health care than any country, but families continue to struggle with skyrocketing premiums and nearly 46 million are without insurance entirely. It is a priority for the American people and a pillar of the new foundation we are seeking to build for our economy.

P.S. If you’d like to get more in-depth information about health reform and how you can participate, be sure to visit http://www.HealthReform.gov.  

We’ll continue to keep you posted about this and other important issues. 

Thank you, 
Barack Obama  

 

  
 
This email was sent to  
Unsubscribe | Privacy Policy The White House · 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW · Washington, DC 20500 · 202-456-1111

With its initiatives targeted for completion in 2015, you can bet that GE is putting everything they have to insure a 2nd term for President Obama or another progressive, liberal Democrat in his place, and based on these tactics is going to use every one of its business holdings – including its media arm – to insure their bed-partner…errrr….business partner stays in office and to be the propaganda machine for his fascist wares.

I wonder what the shareholders are going to think when Obama decides they are no longer entitled to their profits?