Democrats Will Investigate Bush…They Hope
Thursday, November 13th, 2008Congressional investigations of the current administration is EXACTLY what the electorate wanted when they put Democrats in power in all three branches. I’m so glad the Democrats are in touch with the voters in a way the Republicans just aren’t.
Topics of open investigations include the harsh interrogation of detainees, the prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman of Alabama, secret legal memorandums from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and the role of the former White House aides Karl Rove and Harriet E. Miers in the firing of federal prosecutors.
Mr. Bush has used his executive powers to block Congressional requests for executive branch documents and testimony from former aides. But investigators hope that the Obama administration will open the filing cabinets and withdraw assertions of executive privilege that Bush officials have invoked to keep from testifying.
“I intend to ensure that our outstanding subpoenas and document requests relating to the U.S. attorneys matter are enforced,” said Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “I am hopeful that progress can be made with the coming of the new administration.”
Also, two advocacy groups, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First, have prepared detailed reports for the new administration calling for criminal investigations into accusations of abuse of detainees.
It is not clear, though, how a President Barack Obama will handle such requests. Legal specialists said the pressure to investigate the Bush years would raise tough political and legal questions.
Because every president eventually leaves office, incoming chief executives have an incentive to quash investigations into their predecessor’s tenure. Mr. Bush used executive privilege for the first time in 2001, to block a subpoena by Congressional Republicans investigating the Clinton administration.
So, the Democrats want their own President (Barack Obama) to tie his own hands during a time of war and get their permission to prosecute it, too? This issue is going to put Obama in a serious jam. The party faithful are out for blood, but these investigations will piss off most fair-minded Americans.
It will be interesting to see how many self-inflicted wounds Obama will take in order to appease his rabid base.
Cross-posted at RightWingNews
Chuck Schumer Compares Free Speech To Pornography
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008Chuck Schumer Compares Free Speech To Pornography
Oh yeah, I want him to have unbridled power.
What Americans Want: Save Me!
Thursday, October 30th, 2008This election means change, alright, but it’s not the changes that seem evident at first blush.The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henniger gets down to what this election means for America:
Push past the historic candidacy, however, and one sees something even larger at stake in this vote. One sees what Joe (The Plumber) Wurzelbacher saw. The real “change” being put to a vote for the American people in 2008 is not simply a break from the economic policies of “the past eight years” but with the American economic philosophy of the past 200 years. This election is about a long-term change in America’s idea of itself.
I don’t agree with the argument that an Obama-Pelosi-Reid government is a one-off, that good old nonideological American pragmatism will temper their ambitions. Not true. With this election, the U.S. is at a philosophical tipping point.
The goal of Sen. Obama and the modern, “progressive” Democratic Party is to move the U.S. in the direction of Western Europe, the so-called German model and its “social market economy.” Under this notion, business is highly regulated, as it would be in the next Congress under Democratic House committee chairmen Markey, Frank and Waxman. Business is allowed to create “wealth” so long as its utility is not primarily to create new jobs or economic growth but to support a deep welfare system.
An Obama presidency would lead America towards a European “social market economy.” (Oct. 30)
The political planets are aligned to make this achievable. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, prominent Democrats, European leaders in France and Germany and more U.S. newspaper articles than one can count have said that the crisis proves the need to permanently tame the American “free-market” model. P.O.W. Alan Greenspan is broadcasting confessions. The question is: Are the American people of a mind to throw in the towel on the system that got them here?
While Europeans seem eager to for Americans to follow them into mediocrity, they ignore what that will mean for them personally. They have had the luxury of depending on American magnanimity for security so they could have universal health care and long vacations. That will likely soon change.
Americans, many of them, see these realities:
We put all this money towards AIDS in Africa, peace in the Middle East, safety in Europe and it seems like we work harder to make ends meet. Protectionism favors Democrats.
All politicians are self-involved, lying, cheating, money-grubbing, above-the-law scumbags. Cynicism favors Democrats.
We used to be able to count on loyalty from our company, a good job that didn’t require much but kept me busy and wage increases that at least met or beat inflation. Job security is a thing of the past. Fear favors Democrats.
The world seems increasingly beyond everyone’s control. Part of the reason that George W. Bush backed the Paulson Plan is because he knows that world-wide panic can cause economic and social chaos. Too many moving parts, too many decisions, too much confusing information.
State control saves a person the trouble of having to think or having to be uncomfortable. Well, that’s the idea anyway.
Americans have traditionally chosen the vicissitudes of a free market because they could see the personal benefit. There is less security, but there is much more reward. When people feel that the reward is out of reach or impossible, they turn to guaranteed not-too-awfulness–socialism. It’s better than destitution or the fear that one may end up destitute. Venezuela is Exhibit “A”, at the moment.
MaxedOutMama, wrote an excellent post in this regard. There is a WHY here and Republicans are not blameless. In fact, a whole host of uncomfortable economic information points to why Americans are where they are at. She says:
I’ll tell you what’s so insane about this election. First, neither candidate is addressing the real US problem, which are policies that have driven the bottom 60% of the US income pyramid into financial difficulty. The 80-90% segment of the pyramid is a derivative of the bottom 60%. The 90-95% segment is a derivative of the 80-90%. The 60-80% plus the 95-100% wedges are too little to carry the rest. What we need to do is subsidize the bottom 5-15%, take some of the tax load off the 15-30%, and increase taxation on the 80% - 100%. The best way to stimulate the middle is to spark corporate growth, which can best be done by going to a moderate flat tax on corporations. I’d suggest 18%.
Those destructive policies are policies of energy starvation, which destroys economies, and industrial starvation, which destroys economies, and a regressive taxation policy which increases the relative load on the bottom of the pyramid. Second, neither candidate is willing to really address the future compounding of our current problems, which is the coming retirement boom. Third, neither candidate is willing to address the nearly global changes in the business climate, which have combined to decrease US ability to compete. Fourth, both candidates advocate a carbon cap and trade policy which would be economic suicide if applied mainly to the US, and global economic suicide if applied fairly.
The bozo election will not end well. It is true that Obama is worse, because McCain’s energy policy is a lot more realistic.
When the bottom 60% feel unstable, even when they have a job, even a regular paycheck, but they live precariously, socialist policies–which would be the exact worst thing for them ultimately but sound good in the short term–become appealing.
The problem with this socialistic impulse: America just can’t do it. With Baby Boomers who have never known a challenging economic moment retiring, there are going to have to be cuts not expansion of the government. But I fear that’s exactly what both candidate will attempt.
These next four years, the next fifteen, are going to be challenging. Looking at all this, the words of Mr. T come to mind: “I pity the fool” who will be facing this mess.
Cross-posted at RightWingNews
If Obama’s Administration Takes Your 401K, Can We Call Him A Socialist Then?
Friday, October 24th, 2008A dear reader wrote yesterday that using the term “socialist” is a code word:
Martin Luther King Jr, W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, A. Philip Randolph, etc were all denounced as “socialists”. Just as with Obama, the term is employed as a euphamism for something else entirely.
Righties have simply reached back in history to use an old code word for black. It set whites apart from those deemed unAmerican and those who could not be trusted during the communism scare. It’s funny, McCain wants to buy your house - and Obama’s the socialist.
Well, I don’t know about whether the aforementioned men were socialist or not. What I know is this: socialism is soothing ideology in troubled times and for people who are afraid about their survival. And socialism never turns out the way people hope or plan.
Long-time readers know that I have expressed worry about Americans generally and our leadership in particular when it comes to government handouts. It seems that far too many people are willing to enslave themselves (for that is exactly the relationship when one depends on the government for survival) in order to have a guarantee of economic safety. So today, we have businesses and individuals who because of irresponsible living, rely on the government long-term. The government is a harsh taskmaster. A nameless, faceless bureaucrat will decide a person’s fate.
Long-time readers also know of my unease about John McCain and my discomfort about the “bailout”. So, when I criticize Barack Obama, it’s a matter that I think he is more extreme than John McCain when it comes to big government and redistribution. That is to say, I have not liked the socialistic trend our government has taken. There seems to be an impulse, no matter the leader, to invade every aspect of American’s lives. The most invasive way to do that is to take a person’s money–their economic choices via taxation.
Obama is just more extreme in his desire for the government to control American’s money. He has more socialistic impulses than the other candidate. That is just one reason I oppose his candidacy. It’s a big reason.
Here is the 401K concern:
House Democrats recently invited Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor at the New School of Social Research, to testify before a subcommittee on her idea to eliminate the preferential tax treatment of the popular retirement plans. In place of 401(k) plans, she would have workers transfer their dough into government-created “guaranteed retirement accounts” for every worker. The government would deposit $600 (inflation indexed) every year into the GRAs. Each worker would also have to save 5 percent of pay into the accounts, to which the government would pay a measly 3 percent return. Rep. Jim McDermott, a Democrat from Washington and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, said that since “the savings rate isn’t going up for the investment of $80 billion [in 401(k) tax breaks], we have to start to think about whether or not we want to continue to invest that $80 billion for a policy that’s not generating what we now say it should.”
A few respectful observations:
1) McDermott is right when he says the savings rate isn’t going up. But the savings rate doesn’t include gains to money you invest in the stock market. It ignores the buildup of net worth. (If you bought a share of XYZ Corp. in January at $100, for instance, and its value doubled by December, the savings rate measure would still value that investment at $100. In short, the savings rate is a phony number.)
2) So based partly on the above faulty logic, the $4.5 trillion, as of the start of the year, invested in 401(k) plans doesn’t count as savings.
3) Ghilarducci would have workers abandon the stock market right at the bottom of the market. A stupid idea, according to Warren Buffett: “I don’t like to opine on the stock market, and again I emphasize that I have no idea what the market will do in the short term. Nevertheless, I’ll follow the lead of a restaurant that opened in an empty bank building and then advertised: ‘Put your mouth where your money was.’ Today my money and my mouth both say equities.”
4) Ghilarducci would offer a lousy 3 percent return. The long-run return of the stock market, adjusted for inflation, is more like 7 percent. Look at it this way: Ten thousand dollars growing at 3 percent a year for 40 years leaves you with roughly $22,000. But $10,000 growing at 7 percent a year for 40 years leaves you with $150,000. That is a high price to pay for what Ghilarducci describes as the removal of “a source of financial anxiety and…fruitless discussions with brokers and financial sales agents, who are also desperate for more fees and are often wrong about markets.” Please, I’ll take a bit of worry for an additional $128,000.
5) What effect would this plan have on an already battered stock market? Well, I would imagine it would send it even lower, sticking a shiv into the portfolios of everyone who didn’t jump aboard. But I am sure the Chinese would love to jump in and buy all our cheap stocks to fund the retirement of their citizens.
With the Democrats controlling Congress, having Barack Obama in the White House will mean there is no stop to any socialist impulses. For me, I like an adversarial relationship in Washington. Gridlock is a beautiful thing. That means that no laws can be made. Good.
Everything the government touches turns to dung. Democrats unfettered frightens me. They believe in big government generally. They believe in government as a solution to all problems.
Since I believe that the government is not a force for good and never will be, I am not voting for a guy who believes that the problem isn’t big government, it’s just that big government isn’t done right. That, to me, is rank hubris.
Democrats can save their charges of racism. It’s offensive and to quote their Dear Leader, a distraction. The problem with Barack Obama is not his skin color. In fact, I eagerly anticipate the day when I can vote for a black man for president. But not this man. My opposition is based in ideology. It is philosophy. It is policy. And because I disagree with Barack Obama on nearly everything, I’m not voting for him.
Delusion, Thy Name Is Democrat
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008Delusion, thy name is Democrat. Here are tolerant West Siders cheering jeering McCain-Palin supporters:
In one of Barack Obama’s ads, he talks about thinking about the working man, every single day. That his motivation is to help them. That would be nice, if liberal policies ever helped the middle class.
The kind of society that results from liberal policy is the kind of society you find in cities across America–Detroit, New Orleans, Chicago. In these cities, there are two classes of people: the rich power brokers and the poor people kept poor who support them.
Deluded Democrats hate capitalism even as they hypocritically enjoy the success of capitalism. Deluded Democrats preach environmentalism as they hypocritically hop on their private jets. Deluded Democrats speak of raising taxes as they hypocritically shelter their money, knowing damn well they won’t suffer any loss of lifestyle.
Deluded Democrats preach tolerance even as they hypocritically denigrate anyone who does not hold the same ideology as their own.
The Democrats are anything but liberal and tolerant. Their ideas sound smart, but ignore human nature–including their own.
In conclusion: A parable.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
BLOGS VINDICATED, MSM STUPID AGAIN: Democrat’s Kid Indicted For Hacking Palin’s Email Account
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008Jim Hoft had it first. And remember when the left-o-sphere said the evidence was weak?
Uh, right. The evidence always seems weak when the criminal is the son of a Democrat congressman.
I Thought The Bailout Was A Good Thing For Wall Street–Updated
Friday, October 3rd, 2008Why aren’t they happy?
I mentioned it before, but I’m going to clarify: It is obscene that Congressmen and Senators preen for the cameras over this legislation. If the legislation was even necessary, it was a necessary evil. It was dirty business signifying a dismaying trend in American culture and American voters were not happy about it even if they thought it was the right thing to do. To see Chris Dodd, CHRIS DODD! of all people, and now Nancy Pelosi gloat is sickening.
These pompous windbags wonder why they are loathed. This is why. All Americans are paying now for the people and businesses who live beyond their means. See, the little guy is screwed. He might declare bankruptcy but no one is bailing him out. But big business and the sticky-fingered government that helped create this problem are getting bailed out.
And they brag. Do they realize that every self-congratulatory word they spout will be replayed if this money gamble doesn’t work? Oh right, I forgot. The press will cover their butts and blame Bush for signing it into law.
Updated:
The Anchoress captures my feeling, as usual:
No one has defended President Bush more than I have during his time in office. No one.
But his signing the “bailout bill” that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the rest of them were giddy over this afternoon - it has stunned me. And I don’t think I’m alone in this, either.
When I heard Joe Biden talk about giving courts the power to reset mortgage principles I thought he’d simply misspoken. Today I see it is a central point in this garbage “bailout” that I am less-and-less persuaded we “absolutely” needed, this “quickly” - mostly because I so distrust the manner in which this whole episode has been served, and the bad faith in which certain moves were played.
I feel very strongly that this bill is a nuclear blast to the economic foundations of the nation. There are laughing hyenas waiting to feed on the carcass.
What she said.
Cross-posted at RightWingNews
Reaction To Sarah’s Performance
Friday, October 3rd, 2008You can see how I reacted, moment by moment here.
Redstate: Ifill was biased. Big surprise.
From StoptheACLU: “She killed.”
Don Surber: “I don’t know if she can still save McCain, but she got game.”
Michelle Malkin on Biden: “Man, he’s tired.” And this:
She was warm, fresh, funny, confident, energetic, personable, relentless, and on message. She roasted Obama’s flip-flops on the surge and tea-with-dictators declarations, dinged Biden’s bash-Bush rhetoric, challenged the blame-America defeatism of the Left, and exuded the sunny optimism that energized the base in the first place.
Mark R. Levin: “She is the bright light in this campaign from my perspective.”
Wanna help? Go here.
The Anchoress: “When I saw that audience [Frank Luntz focus group] response to Palin I thought: here in a nutshell is why the other side has worked so vociferously to destroy her, so quickly.”
Lorie Byrd: “Sarah is no Dan Quayle. And she is no Tina Fey cartoon. And she is no drooling moron.”
Commenter from Ann Althouse (who is fabulous, I must say): “I feel like smoking a cigarette.”
Gateway Pundit with pictures: “The media looked like they wanted to cry.” He’s actually there. I hope there were tears.
Rachel Lucas disclaims any relation to Charles Krauthammer. Well, that’s a relief.
Glenn Reynolds smacks Biden around for his ignorance about the constitution. I found myself explaining his dull-wittedness to the fam. And yelling,”Liar!” at the TV. See what 35 years in the Senate gets you? See how smart you get? And Biden is a lawyer.
Tigerhawk watched an audience-meter and observes: “I’m still fascinated with Biden’s disproportionate appeal to women, as opposed to men, in the audience meter. Democrats have really mastered the code words. There is another way of looking at this, though: The men and women react differently to Biden’s rhetoric, and very similarly to Palin’s. Which is better for the country?”
Jim Treacher reacts as I did to Biden every time he talked–I just zoned: “# Joe’s point aboutZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ”
Cassy Fiano says, “Hey, maybe I’m setting the bar too high. It seems like everyone loved her!”
More later. I’m going to bed.
Joe Biden’s Lies–14 And Counting….–Updated
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008Only 14?
JOE BIDEN’S 14 LIES TONIGHT
1. TAX VOTE: Biden said McCain voted “the exact same way” as Obama to increase taxes on Americans earning just $42,000, but McCain DID NOT VOTE THAT WAY.
2. AHMEDINIJAD MEETING: Joe Biden lied when he said that Barack Obama never said that he would sit down unconditionally with Mahmoud Ahmedinijad of Iran. Barack Obama did say specifically, and Joe Biden attacked him for it.
3. OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING: Biden said, “Drill we must.” But Biden has opposed offshore drilling and even compared offshore drilling to “raping” the Outer Continental Shelf.”
4. TROOP FUNDING: Joe Biden lied when he indicated that John McCain and Barack Obama voted the same way against funding the troops in the field. John McCain opposed a bill that included a timeline, that the President of the United States had already said he would veto regardless of it’s passage.
5. OPPOSING CLEAN COAL: Biden says he’s always been for clean coal, but he just told a voter that he is against clean coal and any new coal plants in America and has a record of voting against clean coal and coal in the U.S. Senate.
6. ALERNATIVE ENERGY VOTES: According to FactCheck.org, Biden is exaggerating and overstating John McCain’s record voting for alternative energy when he says he voted against it 23 times.
7. HEALTH INSURANCE: Biden falsely said McCain will raise taxes on people’s health insurance coverage — they get a tax credit to offset any tax hike. Independent fact checkers have confirmed this attack is false
8. OIL TAXES: Biden falsely said Palin supported a windfall profits tax in Alaska — she reformed the state tax and revenue system, it’s not a windfall profits tax.
9. AFGHANISTAN / GEN. MCKIERNAN COMMENTS: Biden said that top military commander in Iraq said the principles of the surge could not be applied to Afghanistan, but the commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force Gen. David D. McKiernan said that there were principles of the surge strategy, including working with tribes, that could be applied in Afghanistan.
10. REGULATION: Biden falsely said McCain weakened regulation — he actually called for more regulation on Fannie and Freddie.
11. IRAQ: When Joe Biden lied when he said that John McCain was “dead wrong on Iraq”, because Joe Biden shared the same vote to authorize the war and differed on the surge strategy where they John McCain has been proven right.
12. TAX INCREASES: Biden said Americans earning less than $250,000 wouldn’t see higher taxes, but the Obama-Biden tax plan would raise taxes on individuals making $200,000 or more.
13. BAILOUT: Biden said the economic rescue legislation matches the four principles that Obama laid out, but in reality it doesn’t meet two of the four principles that Obama outlined on Sept. 19, which were that it include an emergency economic stimulus package, and that it be part of “part of a globally coordinated effort with our partners in the G-20.”
14. REAGAN TAX RATES: Biden is wrong in saying that under Obama, Americans won’t pay any more in taxes then they did under Reagan.
Updated:
Betsy’s Page talks more specifics and decries Biden’s “phony reputation.”
Michael Totten talks about Biden’s hallucination about Lebanon:
Nobody – nobody – has ever kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Not the United States. Not France. Not Israel. And not the Lebanese. Nobody.
Joe Biden has literally no idea what he’s talking about.
It’s too bad debate moderator Gwen Ifill didn’t catch him and ask a follow up question: When did the United States and France kick Hezbollah out of Lebanon?
The answer? Never. And did Biden and Senator Barack Obama really say NATO troops should be sent into Lebanon? When did they say that? Why would they say that? They certainly didn’t say it because NATO needed to prevent Hezbollah from returning–since Hezbollah never went anywhere.
I tried to chalk this one up as just the latest of Biden’s colorful gaffes. Did he mean to say “we kicked Syria out of Lebanon?” But that wouldn’t make any more sense. First of all, the Lebanese kicked Syria out of Lebanon. Not the United States, and not France. But he clearly meant to say Hezbollah, not Syria, because he correctly notes just a few sentences later that Hezbollah is part of Lebanon’s government. He wasn’t talking about Syria. He was talking about Hezbollah all the way through, at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of his outlandish assertion.
Biden is wrong on Pakistan:
PAKISTANI WEAPONS: “Pakistan already has nuclear weapons. Pakistan already has deployed nuclear weapons. Pakistan’s weapons can already hit Israel and the Mediterranean.”
I won’t quite chalk this up as a lie/hallucination, but Biden is on shaky ground here.(See below.) The distance between Israel and Pakistan is 2,085 miles, or 3355 kilometers.The longest-range existing strategic missile in the Pakistani arsenal has a range of 3000 kilometers, but it might have longer range with a lighter payload. (But how much can you lighten a nuclear payload?)They are working on developing longer-range missiles; maybe Biden knows of some development that public sources do not yet know about. Theoretically, the Pakistanis could put the weapon on a boat and then sail it to the target, but by that standard, any site on a coast in the world is within their range.ANOTHER UPDATE: This site indicates that the top range of Pakistani missile that can carry a nuclear warhead is 1000 miles. By being off by 1,000 or so, I’m now upgrading this to full lie/error/hallucination status.
Victor Davis Hansen on the Media bias.
Mark Steyn says it best in the contrast and there’s lots more:
That’s where Sarah Palin scored in the vice-presidential showdown. A lot of the grandees in the post-debate analysis reviewed the lyrics and missed the music. Whereas, I would wager, a big chunk of uncommitted voters out in TV land listened to Gov. Palin, and liked the tune they were hearing. If you’re one of those coastal feminists who despise Alaska’s sweetheart as a chillbilly breeder whose knowledge of foreign policy is as full of holes as the last moose to make the mistake of strolling past her deck, Thursday night’s folksy performance isn’t going to change your view. But, if your contempt for her wasn’t already chiseled in granite, she came over as genuine, confident …and different. Change you can believe in, to coin a phrase.
I was a bit alarmed at first. I hadn’t seen her for awhile, not since the halfwits at the McCain campaign walled her up in the witness protection program and permitted visitations only by selected poobahs of the Metamucil networks. When she walked out on stage, her famous reach-for-the-skies up-do seemed a bit subdued and earthbound, like a low-budget remake of the famous scene in “There’s Something About Mary.” Then she started speaking. The lyrics were workmanlike, but the music was effective.
Dr. Melissa
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