Do They Know it’s a Recession?

At a time when many Americans need money now, a shocking new analysis by USA Today of federal salary information shows a dramatic increase in the number of federal employees who are making six-figure incomes. The numbers make it seem as if these workers are far from feeling the effects of the recession.

Employees previously making $ 100,000 or more saw an increase of between 14 and 19 percent in their salaries, before factoring in bonuses and overtime pay. That’s an awful lot of money for those that already are well off – and at a time when more people are hurting than ever.

And the Rich Get …Well, You Know the Rest

The number of civilian employees in the Defense Department earning $ 150,000 salaries increased from 1,868 at the end of 2007 to 10,100 in June of the current year. This news can be hard to swallow at a time when millions of Americans have lost their jobs and are struggling to make ends meets. A lot of people would love to be working, but can’t find even a basic job.

Conversely, federal hiring has been on a steady rise in recent months. In the last 18 months, the Transportation Department has bumped 1,689 people to over $ 170,000 – compared to only ONE person earning that before now.

Is this where it Ends?

Perhaps this would be easier to stomach if this were the extent of it. The truth is that the entire federal government is raising salaries, which is asinine considering we have a record deficit and debt. Six figure salaries are less common in these areas. Meanwhile in the rest of the country we desperately need money now.

How is this Justified?

According to Jessica Klement, the government affairs director for the Federal Managers Association, these employees work in industries that require greater amounts of training or skills, and are working for less then their private sector counterparts. The USA Today reports that Klement said these workers, according to Klement, made 26 percent less than counterparts in the private sector.

Does their Story Hold Water?

USA Today also looked at federal employee salary stats from the Office of Personnel Management (except workers in Congress, Postal Service, the White House, the military, and at “intelligence” agencies – their track record justifies quotes). From the study they found that the average private sector salary was $ 41,331 and the average federal employee is making $ 71,206.

Shocking, but True

For the majority of Americans who really need money now, this is going to be some tough news to hear. The previous administration approved pay increases of 3 percent in January of 2008 and 3.9 percent in January of 2009 across the board for federal employees. The recommendation of President Obama is to take this down to 2 percent for the beginning of 2010, which may still sound high but is actually the lowest increase since 1975. These raises, among others and modified pay systems, have led to these egregious salary increases.

Technorati Tags: federal government raises, federal pay increase, federal raises, government, increase government raises, need money now, pay increase, recession

Democrats simply cannot understand when they are wrong.  At least their fumbling around for excuses makes for good comedy if not disastrous public policy. 

In advance of His much anticipated State of the Union message on Wednesday, President Obama is trying to understand why His Stimulus Bill and Budget measures have not created any private sector jobs, why the public dislikes the Health Care proposal (actually the public harbors something closer to genuine hatred for it, but we are being nice here), and why reliably leftist Massachusetts voters were eager to toss out generations of northeastern liberalism in a special Senate election.  As the President slumps in his Oval Office chair wondering why the masses let Him down, it seems to most Americans that Obama’s chickens are finally ‘coming home to roost.’    All the grand talk of hope and change prevalent in 2008 has been smacked upside the head by that 2 x 4 called reality.

It is the absolute height of irony that the death of stalwart liberal Senator Edward Kennedy provided Americans with that one last ‘Hail Mary’ opportunity to stop the takeover of US Health Care.  The Senator’s passing, coming when it did, necessitated a special election early in 2010.  Not only did a Republican take over the seat, but a Republican sounding an awful lot like Ronald Reagan managed a win that really wasn’t all that close.  Democrat Senators and Congress folks don’t understand much about economics except the issue of unemployment – especially when the prospect for their own job loss has been made a significant possibility.  The Scott Brown win made this a strong likelihood for everyone in Washington with a “D” beside his or her name.

Following the Massachusetts Senate loss, DC Democrats were left to fish about for whatever excuse they could lay their little fingers on.  Finding their excuse cupboard nearly empty, Obama and the Democrats rolled out their tried and until recently, true excuse of blaming Bush and ‘not doing a good job of communicating’ with voters. 

Interestingly, anyone living in Massachusetts saw thousands of political message ads, communications notes, press releases and received countless telephone calls.  The Democrats in fact did a great job of communicating.  The mistake they made was telling the truth.   Democrats told the truth that takeover of American Health Care would be final if Martha Coakley prevailed in the election.  

Now Team Obama is sorting through the wreckage to find a way out of their future unemployment prospects. Democrats, if they are good at anything, are especially good at blaming others for problems of their own creation.  Unfortunately, George W. Bush has been gone from office for over a year and the continued effort to pin the nation’s woes on his policies shows off the administration’s childish attitude.  And without any positive accomplishment to crow about at the State of the Union, even Chris Mathew’s leg is getting impatient.  (Apologies for the visual.)

Yesterday, Obama feebly attempted to blame Himself for a poor job of communicating as the chief reason for the Massachusetts massacre.  Note to the Prez… it isn’t the communication that fell short it was the substance of the policies and your direction of the country.  If nothing else, President Obama can take credit for at last uniting the population by providing a common adversary – even if the common adversary has turned out to be His own administration.  But don’t look for Him to mention that at the State of the Union.

President Obama now undertakes His first State of the Union with the reality of His failures staring at him squarely out of the camera lens.  He will try to make a silly effort at cost cutting by announcing a meaningless budget freeze instead of a major program of budget slashing.  As MSNBC is getting tired of shilling for failed policies, they might not provide Him much political cover in the press this time around. 

Still, Democrats are dense.  After being handed the largest governing majority in modern history, this President and His party now face genuine anger in the heartland as well as reliably liberal New England.    What will they do next?   Bring in a liberal think tanker to ram through Health Care anyway because the country is too stupid to understand it?  Oh wait… that is just what newly minted White House consultant David Plouffe has recommended.    Should Plouffe get his way, the outpouring of anger towards this administration will dwarf anything seen in the nation’s 234 year history.  The Tea Parties have laid the groundwork for massive showings of discontent and a slap in the face from liberal elites will surely ignite a firestorm.

If Obama thinks His fortunes are bad now, He might just look back on this in a year with longing. 

Technorati Tags: Obama Failures, State of the Union

After a genuinely horrible week for Democrats, President Obama spent the weekend gathering his mental faculties and calling together trusted advisors to deal with the new crisis.  Following the weekend strategy sessions, the President’s team set its sights on, well… compounding the disaster.
 
Following the Scott Brown, R-MA Senate election victory, Team Obama was left to sort through the wreckage to come up with a reason for the loss of the Senate Seat until recently owned by the Kennedy Family and the Democrat Party.  In fact, Democrats have done such a good job of taking over the Bay State that the race was originally considered a cake-walk for Democrat Attorney General  Martha Coakley.    In the end, Scott Brown won a Senate race in Massachusetts by sounding like Ronald Reagan.  And this has liberals absolutely terrified.

Although conservatives may have been able to gloat for a few days this week, there may be bigger celebrations ahead.  It now seems that Team Obama has called in the architect of this disaster to, well, help the Democrats recover.  David Plouffe, architect of the Obama Presidential victory in 2008 has been summoned to guide the Democrats in the 2010 mid-term elections. 

Democrats generally hold Plouffe to be some kind of genius.  Unfortunately for them the same issues the David Plouffe successfully exploited during the Presidential campaign will not provide the same power to save liberal candidates.  It may in fact have the opposite impact.  Plouffe’s job in the Obama campaign was to win the election by making voters comfortable with candidate Obama and with Obama’s agenda.  In order to accomplish those objectives, Plouffe was compelled to lie. 

Central to the 2008 Obama victory were promises to centrist voters that the Illinois Senator would be a fiscally responsible, “post-partisan” President who would conduct important affairs of state with transparency and openness.   Continued promises to involve all political persuasions in making important decisions and to be moderate in seeking solutions played wonderfully in the run up to the Presidential election and wound up contributing greatly to candidate Obama’s election win.  Following inauguration, centrist voters waited patiently for signs of the promises their new President had made during the campaign. 

First, the outrageous spending authorized by the Stimulus Bill drove up deficits, offered no rational promise of job creation (because of the massive borrowing requirements) and proved the President to be anything other than fiscally responsible.  Further, payoffs to Unions by taking over General Motors and Chrysler to prevent UAW contracts becoming void under bankruptcy laws only showed the President to be another Chicago political hack paying off his constituents.  The federal budget delivered later that year only exposed the President’s unapologetic willingness to spend an outrageous sum of taxpayer money on marginally useful programs.

“Post Partisan” promises went out the window immediately following the Stimulus passage.  Along with then Republican and soon-to-be unemployed Senator Arlen Specter, two Maine Republicans were the only ones in the entire US Congress that agreed to the package.    And following on the heels of the Stimulus, the Health Care takeover earned not a single opposition vote anywhere.   In fact, Republican input was openly rejected and ridiculed, leaving the leftists to construct a monstrous, 2,000 page bill mandating health rationing, radical Medicare cuts and tremendous escalation of costs for the average American working family.  This was hardly the vision of bipartisanship sold to the electorate by Plouffe and Company.

The promise of transparency and openness became so laughable that even Jay Leno could make a joke of the promises.  Negotiating a Health Care bill without inviting opposition congressional representatives who were duly elected by their constituents and doing so without honoring the pledge to present the negotiations on C-Span was a slap in moderate voter’s faces. 

Although a big time smack in the kisser might be what the moderate voters that supported Obama deserve for their gullibility, the American middle voter has been outraged at discovering it has been lied to.  Leftist elites opine that Health Care and Stimulus are too complicated for average American minds to grasp.  This has only exacerbated the Democrat problems that Plouffe is now being called in to solve.

Plouffe’s biggest problems are that all the promises made in 2008 have been proven to be nothing short of bald faced lies.   He won’t get a chance to assemble another litany of promises without some skepticism from the media and especially from those voters already feeling very betrayed.  This President and His administration exhibited absolutely no intent to work with opposition leaders or to govern from the middle.  Democrats have misread their election as a mandate to take over Health Care and to lead the country in a direction leftward that the nation simply will not tolerate.   This leaves Plouffe no assets to work with.

After the Massachusetts massacre, which constituted the proverbial 2×4 of reality brought to bear firmly over the heads of the Democrat leadership, Democrats are faced with a couple of horrible choices.  Either the left can move back to the middle and try to win re-election based on apologizing for its early errors or double-down on earlier mistakes by pushing Cap and Trade or a wildly liberal Immigration measure.  Neither of these choices is good for the left.

So the architect of Barack Obama’s 2008 election is now being called in to rescue fortunes of Democrats in the 2010 elections.  Given the Stimulus and Health Care bills and all the campaign promises, there can be no policy strategy that will carry any credibility for moderate voters who are now rapidly becoming conservatives. 

The country goes through this once every thirty years or so.  Getting sweet talked by a snake oil salesman is also an American tradition.  Jimmy Carter campaigned on change and certainly delivered.  Obama campaigned on both hope and change and has also delivered. Unfortunately for Democrats, no one expected that voters would actually hold them accountable for what they did deliver.

Technorati Tags: Democrat Disaster, Plouffe Lies

Over the weekend, a storm broke over Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid surrounding comments made prior to the last Presidential election.  The conversation was revealed in a book called “Game Change” about the 2008 election.  Apparently, the Senate Majority Leader believed that the President was an attractive candidate for … well… those that can’t think before they speak.  Judging Obama a good candidate, Reid opined that the future President was a good candidate as he was “light-skinned with no Negro dialect unless he wants one. “

Of course the GOP, having seen one of its former leaders go down in flames for poorly chosen remarks at a birthday party, cried foul.  Democrats tried to laugh off the firestorm and brought in the Prez to help cool things down.  Unfortunately, the President simply confirmed the existence of the double standard although too few in the formerly main stream media realized it.

In rising to Reid’s defense, the President said that Harry Reid is:
“A good man”  (he would be better as a hardware store owner in Searchlight, NV), and
 “A Stalwart Champion of Civil Rights” (as were most Democrats in the 1960s)

Obama added that “there was nothing mean-spirited in what Reid had to say and he’s always been on the right side of the issues.” (meaning that Reid is a reliable liberal).  Obama proceeded to accept Reid’s apology and to chastise those that would criticize either the President or the current Majority Leader.

Taking a closer look at the President’s remarks confirms the double standard that emerged when a leftist like Harry Reid made a racially tinged gaffe.  This as compared to when someone like former Senate Majority Leader Trend Lott makes the similar misstep.  There are actually three confirmations of the double standard found in the President’s comments.

The term “a good man” used as an excuse for inappropriate behavior was also utilized by leftists in defense of Bill Clinton.  It is the Democrat’s ‘bread and butter’ defense.. It has also been used recently for such liberal stalwarts as Turbo Tax Tim Geithner.    Liberals rarely extend the term ‘good man’ to anyone outside of their leftist dreamland, so this shouldn’t be surprising.  What Obama revealed in use of this term though, is that Harry Reid can be classified as a ‘Good Man’ and therefore be exempt from criticism because he is a Democrat.  It naturally follows then that non-Democrats have a different set of rules.

“A stalwart champion of civil rights” was also used by Obama to describe Reid’s character and to mitigate the damage.  Of course as anyone in the DC Press Corps understands, a champion of civil rights is always exempt from personal responsibility.  Jesse Jackson with his history of shakedowns and other personal indiscretions is never held to account for his treatment of others.  And just remember the good Reverend Al Sharpton in his balanced and peace-making approach to the 1987 Tawana Brawley fraud? 

As Democrats are the Holy determiners of who actually is a ‘champion of civil rights,’ Obama was just exercising His divine right to pardon someone He politically agrees with.  If His Excellency the Prez doesn’t agree with you, you are morally condemned.   If you are “on the right side of history,” as determined by the Chosen One, you can make racist comments and get off with an apology.  Obama just issued His decision and the press validated the claim.

All this relies on the complicity of the formerly free American Press Corps.  All too quick to point out any hint of hypocrisy should a Conservative make a misstatement, the Press has emerged as a willing accomplice to the Divine Right of Democrats to chose who is morally superior.  And from that morally superior class emerges the right to determine right from wrong and apply rules without regard to consistency or fairness.

The right to determine virtue in others is the Democrat’s self-proclaimed entitlement.  With the assistance of the formerly free press, the Democrats are now defining a favored class of people by applying rules and protocol according to who is impacted regardless of what was said or done.  Of course they reserved the judge’s chair for themselves.  And in their actions, Democrats have revealed in themselves a belief in their new societal role – the Ruling Class.  

Technorati Tags: Double Standard, Ruling Class

It has been said that when a ship is sinking, the rats are the first to leave.  Certainly seems appropriate in this instance.   Still, the question of why the champions of the new Democrat Party – especially the young and dynamic Gov. Ritter of Colorado – would choose to jump overboard now.  Actually, the answer to this isn’t surprising.  After setting the nation on a catastrophic course to financial ruin, rather than stick around to witness the impending disaster, Sens. Dodd and Conrad and Gov. Ritter manufactured a few ‘family reasons’ and have taken to their heels heading for retirement. 

Uncharacteristically, Republicans were level-headed about these high profile ‘skedaddling’ politicians. Understanding that although this might improve their chances to pick up seats, the GOP must figure out how to deal with the genuinely conservative Tea Party movement before any hope of major gains can be entertained.  Should the GOP embrace conservative principles again, the ‘Force’ of the Tea Party will be with them.  

For now though, it is almost too sweet to watch the media oligarchy prattle on about how difficult life must be for Dorgan and Dodd.  The grand achievement of Dodd’s tenure in office seems to be the massive corruption that lead to the collapse of the housing market and the obscene way in which the good Senator engineered massive executive payouts to AIG execs – particularly those from his home state.   Oh… and yes, the truly horrible Health Care take-over.  And Dorgan – well – could the lefties in ND possibly have come up with a more boring person to represent them in the Senate? 

Colorado is an interesting case study though.  Governor Ritter, once hailed as the architect for turning a red state blue seems to have quickly acquired the gift for reversing the trend.  Using Stimulus money to plug holes in the state budget seemed like a good idea last year.  It meant that Ritter didn’t have to lay off state workers and could balance the budget by enforcing a few unpaid furlough days.  But then the tax receipt projections for 2010 came in and the forecast was horrible.  For Democrats who love to spend to buy votes rather than solve problems, this was the worst possible news.  Programs will certainly have to be cut, state worker layoffs are inevitable and no Democrat wants to be responsible for that.  Under Colorado law, taxes may not be increased without direct electoral consent of the population.   So Ritter and the Democrat’s ship in Colorado is effectively ‘sunk.’

It is this situation that also makes the national political picture more interesting.  Dorgan at least understands basic addition and subtraction enough to know that the nation cannot sustain the financial course he had a hand in creating and pushing through Congress.  And with no more money to spend, what fun would it be to remain in the Senate?  As Maggie Thatcher remarked, the bad thing about Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.  After spending out all of America’s grandchildren’s money, Dorgan can’t figure out how the Democrats can extort any more tax revenue.  So he figured it was time to get out of Washington and return to, well, if he returns to North Dakota, he will surprise everyone.

Curiously, at least Dodd’s surrender enables the lefties to keep one Senate seat they were sure to lose.  Again, the interesting case study focuses on Colorado, where Democrats, trying to avoid panic, are in the process of trying to convince Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to return and run for the office, as Democrats have no other strong statewide candidates.  Salazar however, is married to the uber liberal Obama administration now, which has made no secret of its desire to clamp down on Colorado’s energy industry at a time when energy jobs are badly needed.    In the end, Colorado Democrats will probably have to settle for a Denver or Boulder liberal who will have very little ability to win in a statewide race.

So as the first waves wash over the deck of the Democrat’s ship, the first of the rats are hitting the life rafts.  There will be more to follow. 

Technorati Tags: Democrat Quitters, Dorgan Dodd Ritter

Author’s Note:

Conservative Blog readers seek out columns with conservative humor.  Unfortunately, there isn’t any way to make the Stimulus funny.  Still, these are important arguments, so I hope that this can give readers some ammunition to use against liberal neighbors who can’t understand why people are angry and upset at the Obama Recession.

Thanks for reading!

MAS

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Why The Stimulus Creates No Jobs

President Obama rolled out His new employment plan this week, promising to utilize unspent TARP money to stimulate job growth.  Like the health care disaster being debated in Congress, the President was light on details of His jobs program.  And when confronted with the fact that TARP dollars were loans to banks and when repaid to the taxpayers, the President fell back on the tried and true “we have to do something” excuse previously used to justify horrible decisions.

So Christmas appears to have arrived early for the Obama administration – a couple hundred billion dollars that they didn’t have to raise through taxation.  Of course none of the other spending has been paid for via taxation either, but Congress is fairly sure to go along with the President’s request to use these funds to further destroy the economy.

On the plus side, there were a couple curious inclusions in the President’s plan, such as Capital Gains reduction.  The obvious follow up question that the lefties in the press ignored:  “If reducing taxes creates jobs in small business, why would it not work for the overall economy in general?”  Of course Reagan proved that tax reductions are the only way a government can successfully improve gross employment.

How does Obama get away with this?  The answer of course lies with the media lapdogs assigned to cover this President’s every move.  To make their own jobs easier, those in the media refuse to ask any difficult questions.  This enables Obama to get away with absurd and sure-to-fail strategies.  Count on CNN to cover for Him.  There are several fundamental economic reasons though, that the Stimulus and its ugly step children fail to create jobs and in fact, restrict job growth.

Let’s start with the concept of ‘growth.’  Think about it.  Some of the best paid jobs in America surround economic and business growth. Project Managers, Architects and Engineers all require a customer base that has access to capital and is willing to accept some degree of risk to invest in new projects.  New projects of course require new workers.  The absence of new project work causes the massive layoffs witnessed over the past year.  Without new projects, America is reduced to a service-based economy where the only jobs are low-level service sector positions.  Democrats used to rail against an economy where citizens just ‘flipped each other’s burgers’ for employment.  Curious that the Stimulus has created just the situation for which they demonized Regan and conservatives.  Leave it to liberals to make a disaster real.

Currently, Architects have very little to design and Engineers have nothing to build.  Until general ‘growth’ is established, this situation won’t change and any recovery is certain to be relatively ‘jobless.’  But what drives growth?  Three elements contribute to a growth economy, without which growth is impossible.  These are:

• Reasonably Priced Capital
• Steady (low) Taxation
• Confidence

Reasonably Priced Capital:

Government borrowing for abominations such as the Stimulus and yes, Health Care, only drives up the cost of capital needed for a free economy.   This is a factor of simple supply and demand.  As the federal government competes for money on world financial markets to cover the shortfall between revenues and expenditures, the price of capital is driven upwards.  This also limits the amount of capital available to private industry and small business.  And as we all learned before we went to college, scarcity causes rising prices.

Investors with good ideas and plans requiring capital are then priced out of the market for new development, construction and expansion – leaving the Architects and Engineers without work.  Even if private capital can be found to drive larger projects, most industries are rightfully reluctant to take on that level of risk because the people they expect to be future customers may require financing to purchase their machines, condos and buildings.  Potential investors are wise to hang onto their money.

Taxation:
Tax policy impacts the pool of capital available for investment.  Where in the world do Democrats and liberals think that capital comes from?  Capital comes from private sources and if the Federal government intervenes to extort large sums of it from wealthier citizens, the pool of capital shrinks.  A shrinking capital pool creates additional scarcity and only adds to the upward pressure on interest rates which exacerbates the growth and job creation problem.  With Democrats firmly in control of the government, investors are moving significant sums to offshore investments and depleting the pool of resources available for American growth.

Confidence:
Businesses are wise to hold their funds owing to great uncertainty as to whether Obama and the Democrats will use their current governmental authority to extort their wealth via taxation.  With Health Care – which can only result in exceptionally increased taxation or inflation, Cap and Trade – which will drastically elevate energy and production costs, just two of the major concerns.  Any businessperson investing her or his own money is smart to hang on to it or move it overseas until there is some degree of certainty that they will be able to keep anything they earn in the US.  Again, as wealthy investors withhold capital and invest instead in speculative enterprises – such as land, gold etc., the pool of capital is reduced.

Won’t Stimulus Spending Spur Growth?
The government and liberal argument that Stimulus spending will improve the economy by injecting cash and credit into the system, fails in one crucial and critical way.  Stimulus spending is primarily done by state government and other governmental entities.  This only exacerbates the jobs problem because state and local governments – although offering some temporary relief to the contractor that has the political connections to get one of the ‘shovel ready’ projects – uses the Stimulus funds to pay for workers that don’t produce anything.

Government Produces no Wealth:
After a bridge is built or a road is constructed, the population has collective use of that asset.  That is important.  However after construction is compete, the contractor is now without work.   When the government project is over, the jobs value is essentially finished.

Private enterprise uses capital to create ‘Leverageable’ Assets.  In other words, if a builder constructs a building, he must hire an architect and engineer and all the construction personnel to build it.  When the building is complete, the developer can then borrow against the value of his newly created asset (provided there is reasonably priced capital available) and hire the engineers and architects to build additional buildings and employing more contractors than before.  This is job growth.

Government spending produces no ‘Leverageable’ Assets.  Additionally, government incurs the collective debt that must eventually be paid for.  In other words, government spending may keep teachers and government workers employed, but these employees don’t build anything that can be used to keep the growth and employment cycle moving.  Sure, teachers go to the grocery store and spend like everyone else, but the consumer economy doesn’t produce the kind of good paying growth jobs that were available not so long ago – they produce the ‘burger flipper’ positions Democrats love to hate.  Government workers will also buy cars, but not on the scale that can save General Motors.   And eventually, the federal funding runs out and the bill comes due; a huge bill that Team Obama unceremoniously dumped in the laps of our children.

This is all a long way of saying that the jobs lost in the Obama Recession are directly due to Democrat policies.  They are not coming back any time soon and it will take a courageous Republican Congress and administration to undo the horrific damage done to the free world economy.   Even then it will take years.

Technorati Tags: Stimulus creates no jobs, Stimulus Impact

Obama Summit – Assigning the Blame

President Obama hosted a ‘Jobs Summit’ on Thursday this week ostensibly to identify new ways to create jobs for more Americans.  It hasn’t dawned on the brain trust running the Federal Government that if there was a way to do this, in two hundred years of history, there had to be someone that has accomplished this in the past.

And actually, they have!  Unfortunately for Team Obama, the solution was clearly identified by none other than conservative and arch enemy of the lefty libs, Ronald Regan.  Coming into office on the heels of the last feeble-minded Democrat to occupy the Oval Office, Ronald Regan introduced tax cuts, limited government and reduced regulation.  (I know..Clinton qualifies as just as ‘feeble minded’ but Newt Gingrich kept Clinton’s budget balanced for most of his Presidency.)  The result of Regan’s economic policies was an unprecedented boom in employment and upward mobility.   But for a progressive, man-of-the-people President, learning from a conservative president though is akin to acknowledging that conservatives defeated the Soviet Union.

Now that another Democrat has emerged selling Jimmy Carter’s economic peanut oil, a new conservative resurgence is on the distant horizon.  In the meantime, those interested in earning a better life for themselves and their families are compelled whittle away their days working at Starbucks or UPS, waiting for American voters to get a brain and throw out the current crop of Democrats.

But seriously, what about those that need jobs or want to improve their economic situation now?  President Obama at least understands that citizens aren’t willing to remain without opportunity to earn an income stream that offers a chance to trade in the ’79 Pinto for a Lexus.  Unfortunately for team Obama and the lefties running Washington, the Stimulus Bill has stolen capital required for economic growth and channeled that money into non-wealth building spending by individual states.  History shows that two economic disasters will result from excessive government borrowing – inflation and high interest rates which kills jobs growth. Additionally, increasing taxes on the wealthy only leads to additional job losses (another historical fact).  So what is a Progressive President to do?

Obama will no doubt fall back on what He does best – blame others.  Only this time, he has recruited a team of experts to come up with things to blame.  Union leaders of course will blame ‘corporate greed.’  ACORN will blame racism, discrimination and maltreatment of the poor.  Senate and House Democrats will continue to dredge up class warfare issues to increase animosity amongst the population.  Although these aren’t solutions to the jobs problem, they are useful because these are the only things the President has to work with.

The real reason for this “Jobs Summit” then was to come up with a litany of ills that can be blamed on others.  Since Obama is approaching his one year anniversary in office, the tried and until now true tactic of blaming George W. Bush is looking more and more childish – even to the childish Chris Mathews, whose leg has returned to delivering normal sensation to its owner.

Barack Obama has now come face to face with the reality that all Democrats ultimately confront – liberal policies fail in America.  They actually fail everywhere else as well, but some societies such as in the UK and France, have chosen to live with them for while anyway.  The only thing Obama can do to hang on to His power is to come up with credible excuses.  But sooner or later, someone from MSNBC will ask the President when He will take responsibility for His actions on the economy.

With the country’s mood now soured on additional government spending, Team Obama is backed into a corner… they can’t really implement another Stimulus and they certainly won’t cut spending or tax rates.   This leaves the only available action to utilize friends in the media to blame others and to ultimately change the subject.

This is a process already underway.  Jobs figures released Friday morning show the unemployment rate supposedly dropping by two tenths of one percent.   Wowee!  Unfortunately, if unemployment were measured in the same way as they were under the Peanut Farmer’s reign the figure would be closer to 15 to 17%.  At the end of the week, Obama and company were left to celebrate the fact that only 11,000 jobs were lost during the past month.   Had this happened under GW Bush, Chris Mathews would have thrown up on his desk.

While losing only 11,000 jobs is certainly a step in the right direction, no consideration is given to the real reasons unemployment figures are dropping.  The simple reason is that people have exhausted their unemployment benefits.  When someone drops off his state’s unemployment role, it is assumed that he is no longer unemployed.  He therefore is not added to the number of unemployed.  As the first major waves of layoffs occurred about one year ago, these workers are now exhausting their benefits, leaving the incorrect impression that unemployment is declining when in fact unemployment is still increasing.

Team Obama fully understands this and is using its efforts to take over and ruin American health care to take the weak-minded media off the unemployment issue.  This will only work so long though.  As James Goober Carter discovered, when voters understand the damage liberalism does to the country and the economy, conservatism makes a huge come back.  Stay tuned!

Technorati Tags: Conservative Blog, Obama Blame

Conservative Blog Post for December 2, 2009

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Obama to the Rescue – of the Bush Legacy!

Always endeavoring to show the nation the grave error made in 2000 and 2004, President Barack Obama took it upon himself Tuesday evening to cast more aspersions upon the record of President George W. Bush.  In doing so, though, the current President only highlighted some of the key strengths of the previous President. In doing so, Obama drew some interesting and sharply defined contrasts between Himself and President George W. Bush.  Among these:

1. Bush wasn’t a great politician and despite his mangling of common English syntax and usage, Americans understood him.  After listening to Barack Obama, the only thing clear is that the current President doesn’t really care about winning victory on the battlefield; he only cares about extricating himself from all blame should another terrorist attack occur.  Obama is a fabulous politician and the best slick talker of our generation – meaning that under no circumstances should He be trusted at his word.  Bush was frequently so ineloquent that he always kept the message simple and to the point – in the case of battlefield decisions, the points were victory and freedom. Obama’s points were… well… delivered in teleprompter-aided flawlessness.  It takes review of the transcript to remember exactly what those points were.
2. Bush led the nation to victory in Iraq.  This is particularly aggravating to the Chosen One as the typical liberal philosophy holds that victory can only be won in peaceful ways.  Bush chose a war in Iraq to attract a sizeable number of the world’s terrorists to a battlefield where US forces could kill them.  As an added bonus, one whole lot of Iraqis decided they wanted to help.  In the end, George W. Bush got it right in the nation building game with a two-fold strategy -   a. kill the bad guys and b. show the good guys what life is like with a little glimmer of freedom.  Obama showed that he doesn’t understand either of these points or simply doesn’t care.  Without so much as mentioning the concept of personal freedom or victory, the President treated the speech as if he was announcing a business decision to change the formula for Ben and Jerry’s Coffee Heath Bar Crunch.   He left America wondering if the entire Afghan venture was just to deny the Taliban a stronghold or if there was a much more meaningful objective worth sacrificing our best and most courageous young people for – like American safety and world peace through victory.   A mangled Bush speech –for its clarity if not delivery- was never missed more.
3. The military under Bush’s leadership overran Afghanistan in 50 days.  It took Obama 80 days just to think about it.  The President’s decision was so simplistic that it certainly didn’t take 80 days to concoct.  Bush would have made a decision to send all the troops needed within a matter of hours.  This choice just isn’t that complicated.  Obama needed the 80 days to concoct the speech.
4. In attempting to deride failures of the previous administration, the mere fact that Obama brought up the subject of GW Bush reminded the nation that Bush – despite several failures and obstacles – delivered victory in Iraq and kept the country safe from another terrorist attack.  By bringing up the tactics of the Bush administration, Obama only reiterated that Bush was victorious and Obama, well, hasn’t lost yet, but is looking for a way to extricate himself without calling it failure.  And for the record, should another mass terror attack occur on American soil, voters will hold President Obama to account. 
5. Democrats loved to lampoon the “Mission Accomplished” banner displayed when George Bush declared an end to offensive operations.  The Mission Accomplished speech was delivered to an adoring throng of Navy service people who fully understood that Bush had their best interests at the forefront of all decisions and wouldn’t risk their lives without damned good reasons.  By failing to even define what ‘victory’ or even ‘success’ looked like to Him, President Obama again highlighted the main differences between Himself and His predecessor.  Obama failed to provide a good reason why these young people should risk their lives for the mission – aside from the fact that it is their job. He needed a banner behind him that read “Mission Something”

So it appears that the job of reconstructing the legacy of George W. Bush is well underway.  And the contractor for the job doesn’t understand that he is doing the work.

Technorati Tags: Bush Legacy, Obama vs. Bush

Conservative Blog post for Tuesday, November 24.

Eric Holder and the Trial of the Century

Some Democrats have quietly come to realize that their current President is ‘toxic’ to any hope of re-election in even marginally competitive districts and states.  With the Labor Department’s release this morning of the actual unemployment rate – currently standing at over 17% – and unemployment among African American males at over 34%, President Obama praised his staff at a photo op and encouraged the cabinet to get some rest.  After all, ruining the country takes a great deal of effort from which the Cabinet Secretaries need a break. 

In light of administration failures – especially regarding unemployment, Team Obama is heaping one more issue on the public plate – the show trail of Khalid Sheik Mohammed – mastermind of the 9-11 terror attacks.  Attorney General Eric Holder testified before a Senate committee this week about the entire endeavor.  Disappointingly, only a few Republicans chose to step up and prove how dangerous this President’s policy is regarding trial in civilian courts of battlefield terrorists.  After the hearings, the ‘smartest administration in history’ appeared silly and incompetent.  Still, Senator Lindsay Graham and others fell far short of exposing how dangerous the New York trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed really is.

The Senate committee’s job was to discover just what those risks were.  Instead, Senator Schumer of New York – always among the first to seek an opportunity to fleece taxpayers, asked the AG for several millions of dollars to reimburse the City and State of New York for security and other costs associated with the trial.  Holder agreed. 

Senator Lindsay Graham pointed out to AG Holder that there had never been an instance of using a civilian court to try a foreign combatant.  This fact completely escaped the nation’s top law enforcement officer.  Graham continued to point out that bringing the 9-11 masterminds to the US would only provide a platform for Anti American rhetoric.  While a good line of questioning, Graham and other Senate Republicans missed some obvious opportunities to illustrate the reality of increased risk to the population. 

The purpose of hearings is to generate clarity and useful information.  Graham and other Republicans genuinely failed to illustrate what trying these human freak shows in New York will actually mean.   Here are four obvious questions that the Republican Senators were unwilling to ask:

Suggested question #1
Mr. AG… will you guarantee to the American people that KSM will never again walk a free man? (Holder did actually answer a similar question but was allowed to hedge his answers around what he considered to be an airtight case – he didn’t of course use the word ‘guarantee.’)

Right now at Guantanamo, KSM is safely locked away.  Exposing him to liberal courts in New York opens the risk that some technicality – such as failing to read the killer his Miranda rights before being water boarded – would allow KSM to be released.  When pressed on the matter, the AG responded that even should the government lose the case, KSM would indeed remain in custody as an enemy combatant –which curiously enough is the same status he currently enjoys.

Suggested Question #2
Mr. AG… You stated that KSM will never walk free.  Why in the world would you spend several million dollars in taxpayer money to try a case that will have no impact on KSM’s future status?  In other words, if he is never to walk free, why spend this outrageous sum of money to try him – especially when the US is essentially broke?

The AG would have no answer to this other than to restate that this would make the US look better to the rest of the world.  Of course looking good is what the Obama administration is all about.

Suggested Question #3
Mr. AG…KSM and the others you want to put on trial in Federal Court have indicated that they intend to use the trial as a venue to spread their radical views and hatred of America. Will you guarantee that the detainees or their attorneys will have no opportunity to use the trial to gin up anti American hatred or assist in any way the recruiting of additional Muslim terrorists? 

Again, the AG simply cannot guarantee this.  Should any of this publicity assist the enemy in recruiting additional terrorists, Eric Holder and the President would be personally “at fault” for future attacks.  After all, GW Bush isn’t around to blame any more.  This is a risk Holder and Obama seem willing to take.  We will have to see if future victim’s families are willing to hold them accountable.

Suggested Question #4
Mr. AG…  By allowing these terrorists to use American courts, you will be allowing them access to certain information necessary for a civilian defense – some of which may be sensitive to the security of the nation.  Will you guarantee to the American people that no information useful to terrorists will find its way into the hands of those that would use it to do the nation harm?

Of course lawyers love the spotlight and the ACLU groupies working these cases will take any opportunity they can find to hurt the nation.  The Attorney General cannot possibly make this guarantee.

Conservatives and Republicans missed a golden opportunity to do their job – illustrate to the American people the incredible risk to which they are being subjected by holding these trials in Federal Court.  Voters will however, get to see first-hand what a disaster civilian trials of battlefield combatants are.  And with every terror attorney’s statement, resentment towards the administration will grow.  

Americans are good, kind and fair people.  When defense attorneys begin justifying why several thousand innocent citizens died on 9-11, the administration will appear to have sided with the terrorists.  After all, Obama and Holder provided the platform and enabled dissemination of sensitive information and recruiting of additional terrorists.  Should any information reasonably useful to terrorists escape the courtroom, this President and his party will be held accountable – especially in the aftermath of another attack.

Technorati Tags: KSM Trial, New York Terror Trial

Obama Releases Afghanistan Strategy – A Full Naval Blockade   

After floundering for months seeking a way to win the Afghan war without fighting it, President Obama released his long-awaited plan just after close of the Sunday news cycle.  “In order to starve out radical Muslim criminals, I have ordered the naval forces of the United States to enforce a full military blockade of Afghanistan” said the President in an Oval Office Announcement just after noon Eastern Time on Sunday. 

The President noted that the country needs to be open to new ideas and strategies.    He continued, “I believe America needs a new strategy to win in Afghanistan and needs a strategy that will minimize risk to our men and women in uniform.  By enforcing a naval blockade, no criminal elements will be allowed to enter or leave Afghanistan by sea.  This strategy will choke off their supply lines and end the war with a minimum of bloodshed.  Besides, the Navy hasn’t done much of the fighting and it is only fair for them to take their turn.”

The news conference was also attended by Admiral Mike Mullen – current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Vice President Joe Biden and Rahm Emanuel.  Admiral Mullen seemed subdued during the announcement.  When asked how he felt about the new strategy, he stated “well, the Commander in Chief has made his decision and our job is to carry it out.”  When asked about the wisdom of the new strategy, Mullen shrugged and said “we presented plan after plan to the President and he found fault with each one.  Finally Vice President Biden piped up that we should just surround Afghanistan with ships, to which the President responded, ‘Now we have some new ideas!’  And that is what the President has decided to do.”  Mullen, when asked what the first step would be to carry out the President’s order, replied that the first order of business was to host a meeting at the nearest bar to the White House.  “My staff is already there waiting to complete the details” he said.  Several reporters then asked to be included.  “Fine” said Mullen”we are all in this together now.”

Later during the President’s remarks, Obama was asked what was to become of US and allied troops on the ground fighting in Afghanistan if the US were to choke off all inbound and outbound commerce and traffic.  The President responded that our troops won’t need to fight because the poor impoverished Muslims will be weakened from lack of supply.   Therefore troop levels will be reduced immediately.   “It is only a matter of time before the enemy cracks under the pressure of a naval blockade” said Obama, adding “this strategy demonstrates the resolve and ingenuity of this administration to those that really don’t like us very much.”  “It certainly does,” remarked Fox News’ Brit Hume out loud.  “Thank You, Brit” answered the President, adding “I hope Fox News can be more supportive now that we have come up with a truly different plan to change the course of the war.”  Hume had no response.

The President concluded his remarks by thanking Vice President Biden and Rahm Emanuel for coming up with a truly unique solution to a difficult problem.  “Sometimes it is good to get a non military opinion when something unique and new is needed” he said.  President Obama also said that he was concerned for the troops we were sending into battle in Afghanistan.  “After speaking with the governors of our 57 states about National Guard strength, I concluded that our ground troops needed a break.  That is why we are turning the job over to the US Navy.” 

Early signs of support for the President’s plans were already emerging in the early evening from liberal support groups.  A spokesperson for the National Education Association – the teachers unions – applauded the idea saying that this is the type of decision and creativity our new generation of leadership is capable of producing using education gained in public schools.   

Media Matters, a George Soros-funded media watchdog group also applauded the plan, saying that had John McCain been elected, the war wouldn’t be over for many years.  “Under the Obama plan, this war will end very quickly.” 

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan Strategy, Obama Afghanistan Strategy