Month: September 2011

Reagan for Senate?

Mark Noonan1 Comment

Interesting bit of news from SFGate regarding Senator Feinstein’s 2012 Re-election battle:

…the landscape may change soon, analysts said, given Feinstein’s recent campaign money problems and a Field Poll released today that gives one of California’s most consistently popular politicians a 41 percent approval rating, the lowest of her Senate career.

One person considering a run, The Chronicle has learned, is Michael Reagan, a former conservative talk-radio host and the son of former President Ronald Reagan.

Republicans may consider a challenge to Feinstein less foreboding after the survey of 1,001 registered voters found that 39 percent disapprove of Feinstein’s performance and 20 percent have no opinion.

For the first time since being elected to the Senate in 1992, a plurality – 44 percent – of Field Poll respondents were “not inclined” to vote for her while 41 percent were…

I’ll donate to him – he’s all right on the issues…but it has been a looong time since California was “Reagan Country”.  Though there would be a certain satisfaction if the upcoming political revolution in 2012 included electing a Reagan in California.

But, we shall see – given that the hopelessly liberal Jerry Brown was elected by the people of California to get them out of the mess brought on by hopelessly liberal policies, we have to assume that the level of political intelligence in California is quite low.  Think about it – the choice last year was between a dynamic, successful private-sector executive and the man who did more than most to set California on the path to disaster back in the 1970’s…Californians choose the creator of disaster.

Still, I hope Reagan goes for it – it would be endlessly fun, if nothing else.

Obama Jobs Bill: Billions for ACORN and the Left

Mark Noonan27 Comments

From Pajamas Media:

ACORN and other radical left-wing groups would be eligible for up to $15 billion in federal funding if President Obama’s new economic stimulus package becomes law.

Now that public polling shows Americans are realizing that economic stimulus programs don’t work, the Obama administration is calling the latest round of futile stimulus a “jobs bill.” In a sense it really is a jobs bill: a jobs bill for Saul Alinsky-inspired community organizers.

The draft legislation, which had not yet been introduced in Congress at press time, makes ACORN, Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA), and a phalanx of leftist groups that regularly feed at the public trough eligible for funding…

With the left getting rebellious over Obama’s failure to turn America fully socialist, Obama has to do something to recover their support…and there is nothing a leftist likes better than some taxpayer swag.  To be sure, this doesn’t mean that all $15 billion so earmarked would go to ACORN and similar groups, but with that much cash flowing you know that such groups would pick up at least hundreds of millions…and, perhaps, billions.

This is probably part of the reason Obama wants it passed as is – if he can’t payoff his supporters, there is simply no upside to the bill.  It won’t improve the economy, it won’t create jobs…it won’t, that is, do anything to help Obama in the larger sense, so it had better at least solidify his leftist support.  If the GOP is allowed a say, then the payoffs won’t be in the final bill.

Kill this bill – don’t even think about passing it.  Pass a GOP jobs bill out of the House and let Reid kill that in the Senate, or Obama veto it after passage.  We have no reason to work with the President and the Democrats, at all, because their efforts are not directed at helping America, but at helping themselves.  Let the people decide in 2012 what they want – legislation which is just a payoff for cronies, or legislation that will actually help the United States.

Obamunism! Unemployment Claims Jump

Mark Noonan20 Comments

First time claims for unemployment came in at 428,000 against the “experts” expectation of 410,000; continuing claims are at 3,726,000 against an expectation of 3,700,000.  What I really want to know – in both first time and continuing claims, the expectation was that they would decline.  Who expected this?  Why?  What bit of information out there would lead any financial prognosticator to expect a decline in unemployment?

I think we’ve simply got a bunch of idiots – public and private sector – running the economy.  People who don’t know how things are made, mined and grown and can only predict things based upon assumptions on borrowed and printed money.  For crying out loud, things are lousy out there…you’d at least expect some caution and have the prediction be for things to remain as lousy as they were last week, not get better.

Aside from that, we are seeing more and more indicators of a double dip recession here in the United States while Europe shows ever more signs of financial implosion (day by day there is a new rumor floated of some miracle money to come through to bail out Europe…eventually, they’ll run out of rumors).  Obama’s jobs bill will do nothing to get us back to work but even if we manage to make things improve, the coming crash of Europe will be a huge hit to our economy.  Only a complete re-working of our economic life to make all taxation and regulation geared towards wealth creation will get us permanently out of this mess…and that can’t happen as long as any liberal, anywhere, has a say in what goes on.

Sgt. Dakota L Meyer, Hero

Mark Noonan12 Comments

Though he, like all true heroes, refuses the title…but hero he is:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with Marine Embedded Training Team 2-8, Regional Corps Advisory Command 3-7, in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, on 8 September 2009. Corporal Meyer maintained security at a patrol rally point while other members of his team moved on foot with two platoons of Afghan National Army and Border Police into the village of Ganjgal for a pre-dawn meeting with village elders. Moving into the village, the patrol was ambushed by more than 50 enemy fighters firing rocket propelled grenades, mortars, and machine guns from houses and fortified positions on the slopes above. Hearing over the radio that four U.S. team members were cut off, Corporal Meyer seized the initiative. With a fellow Marine driving, Corporal Meyer took the exposed gunner’s position in a gun-truck as they drove down the steeply terraced terrain in a daring attempt to disrupt the enemy attack and locate the trapped U.S. team. Disregarding intense enemy fire now concentrated on their lone vehicle, Corporal Meyer killed a number of enemy fighters with the mounted machine guns and his rifle, some at near point blank range, as he and his driver made three solo trips into the ambush area. During the first two trips, he and his driver evacuated two dozen Afghan soldiers, many of whom were wounded. When one machine gun became inoperable, he directed a return to the rally point to switch to another gun-truck for a third trip into the ambush area where his accurate fire directly supported the remaining U.S. personnel and Afghan soldiers fighting their way out of the ambush. Despite a shrapnel wound to his arm, Corporal Meyer made two more trips into the ambush area in a third gun-truck accompanied by four other Afghan vehicles to recover more wounded Afghan soldiers and search for the missing U.S. team members. Still under heavy enemy fire, he dismounted the vehicle on the fifth trip and moved on foot to locate and recover the bodies of his team members. Corporal Meyer’s daring initiative and bold fighting spirit throughout the 6-hour battle significantly disrupted the enemy’s attack and inspired the members of the combined force to fight on. His unwavering courage and steadfast devotion to his U.S. and Afghan comrades in the face of almost certain death reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.

As long as we’ve got men like Sgt. Meyer, we’ve got a country.

Global Warming Hoax Update

Mark Noonan134 Comments

From Climate Depot:

Nobel prize winner for physics in 1973 Dr. Ivar Giaever resigned as a Fellow from the American Physical Society (APS) on September 13, 2011 in disgust over the group’s promotion of man-made global warming fears…

…Giaever announced his resignation from APS was due to the group’s belief in man-made global warming fears. Giaever explained in his email to APS: “In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period.”…

I know, I know – our liberals will swiftly discover that Giaever is just a shill for Big Energy, or some such…never mind facts and logic; Al Gore says anthropogenic global warming is true, and so it must be…

But, it isn’t.  If the world is warming, then it is almost certainly not primarily caused by human CO2 emissions.  Additionally, if it is warming there is no conclusive evidence that it will be a net detriment to life on earth.  The whole thing of global warming is a double-edged scam…for leftists to gain political power in the name of saving the planet, and for con artists like Gore to make bags of money.  That is it – never has been anything else, never will be anything else.

Did the Administration Pressure a General to Change Testimony?

Mark Noonan3 Comments

From the Daily Beast:

…The four-star Air Force general who oversees U.S. Space Command walked into a highly secured room on Capitol Hill a week ago to give a classified briefing to lawmakers and staff, and dropped a surprise. Pressed by members, Gen. William Shelton said the White House tried to pressure him to change his testimony to make it more favorable to a company tied to a large Democratic donor.

The episode—confirmed by The Daily Beast in interviews with administration officials and the chairman of a congressional oversight committee—is the latest in a string of incidents that have given Republicans sudden fodder for questions about whether the Obama administration is politically interfering in routine government matters that affect donors or fundraisers. Already, the FBI and a House committee are investigating a federal loan guarantee to a now failed solar firm called Solyndra that is tied to a large Obama fundraiser…

There are two questions we need to have answered, over all:

1.  Has government policy been for sale?  Did the Administration set things up so that their donors and cronies would get the government swag regardless of the needs of the nation?

2.  If so, then what did the President know, and when did he know it?

Yes that second question is the “Watergate/impeachment” question.  And we need both questions answered.  We already see in the preliminary stages of the growing Solyndra scandal that Obama’s people would ensure that donors got special treatment…now we need to know, further, if outright lies were sought or presented by the Administration to ensure their cronies got government largesse.  Once we find that out, we then need to know if President Obama was aware of it, and when he became aware.  The answers to these questions will tell us if we’ve just got some rather routine government back scratching, or if we’ve got a government which has put the United States up for sale to the highest donor.

Will Obama Quit?

Mark Noonan15 Comments

PJ Tatler has a run down on the growing rumors that Obama  may quit – pull an LBJ and back out of running in 2012.  I don’t think this will happen.

First off, the only people on the Democrat side who might suggest this – Lieberman, Bayh, etc – are not the sort of people Obama will listen to.  Locked in to his array of sycophants, Obama is not about to allow some outsider to tell him that the game is over and its time to go home.  I can very much see some sensible Democrats wanting to do this – there is a chance with Obama on the ticket that a defeat in 2012 will turn in to an epic, blow out loss – but I can’t see any way for such people to reach Obama.

Secondly, and this ties in to why there won’t be a serious primary challenge, to move against Obama is to risk the Democrats’ hammer lock on the African American vote.  This isn’t just about the 2012 Presidential election – this is about whether or not liberals can retain any power to influence American policy.  A defeat in 2012 would be bad for them – but there is defeat, and then there is crushing loss.  Defeat is Obama out and the loss of 20 House and 5 Senate seats. Bad.  Means GOP controls things for at least two years.  Lots of conservative reforms can be implemented…but the chances of a major overhaul of the FDR/LBJ settlement are small.  Crushing loss is Obama out and the loss of 50 House and 15 Senate Seats.  Horrific.  Means GOP has the power to pretty much do whatever it wants…every liberal program is on the chopping block.  Just can’t be allowed to happen.

But that is what would happen if the Democrat party – by calling on Obama to quit or engineering a serious primary challenger – were to be perceived by African American voters as having betrayed Obama.  Its not that they would vote GOP, but that they would stay home on election day.  Without high African American turnout going 90%+ for the Democrats, the horrific scenario becomes a reality.  Of course, the Democrats might endure the horrific loss, anyway, but why make it a certainty by stabbing Obama in the back?  For good or ill, Democrats have Obama for 2012…in 2008, they jumped on his bandwagon presuming that he could initiate 50 years of liberal rule.  It hasn’t worked out that way.  Even if Obama manages to win in 2012, he has completely failed in that promise…but if the liberals want to have a future in America, they have to ensure that 2012 doesn’t work out as a blowout loss.  Easier to keep losses to a minimum with Obama than without.

I could be wrong about this – there might be a revolt of the remaining moderates in the Democrat party.  More than likely, though, there won’t be…and if there is, it will work out as a quixotic, third party alternative…which would help sink Obama, but wouldn’t destroy the Democrat party for the next 20 years.  That will all be as it may – none of us get a say in how Democrats do things.  Our job is to work for the blowout victory no matter what they do – because right now we have that chance to really do it:  to win so much power that we really can dismantle the Welfare State.

So, let’s just get out there and do it..

Reid: I’ll Force a Vote on the Jobs Bill…Eventually

Mark Noonan3 Comments

From the Las Vegas Sun:

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Republicans won’t support President Barack Obama’s jobs plan, but he still wants them to vote on the sweeping $450 billion economic recovery effort.

“We are going to have the Republicans belly up to the bar to turn down this plan,” Reid said during a virtual town hall meeting with supporters Wednesday.

Reid said he won’t immediately take up Obama’s plan because the Senate must tackle other issues first. He didn’t specify which bills would receive priority over Obama’s economic solution…

Anyone have an idea of what other, crisis issue we have before us which pre-empts jobs?

What is really happening here is not a Reid worry that the GOP will uniformly vote it down, but that half a dozen vulnerable, 2012 Democrats will vote against it, as well.  The last thing Obama, Reid and the Democrats need is for the Obama jobs bill to die in the Democrat Senate.  So, Reid’s “I’ll force them to vote” is just bluster…he won’t move until the House does.

Solyndra II?

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Not satisfied with having thrown hundreds of millions away on Solyndra, the Obama Administration is now going to throw billions – from a Department of Energy press release:

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced the Energy Department finalized a $1.2 billion loan guarantee to Mojave Solar LLC for the development of the Mojave Solar Project (MSP).  When complete, the 250MW solar generation project located in San Bernardino County, California will increase the nation’s currently installed concentrating solar power (CSP) capacity by approximately 50 percent.  Abengoa Solar Inc., the project sponsor, estimates it will fund more than 900 construction and permanent operations jobs…

Sounds great, huh?  But we’ve heard this before from DoE:

Vice President Joe Biden, appearing via satellite from Washington D.C., today announced the Department of Energy has finalized a $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra, Inc., which manufactures innovative cylindrical solar photovoltaic panels that provide clean, renewable energy. The funding will finance construction of the first phase of the company’s new manufacturing facility. Annual production of solar panels from the first phase is expected to provide energy equivalent to powering 24,000 homes a year or over half a million homes over the project’s lifetime.  Solyndra estimates the new plant will initially create 3,000 construction jobs, and lead to as many as 1,000 jobs once the facility opens.  Hundreds more will install Solyndra’s solar panels on rooftops around the country…

Will the new loan guarantee prove better than the last, or is this good money after bad?  Also, did the people running Mojave Solar LLC donate to President Obama?  Other Democrats?  How often have they been to visit the White House?  Is this a hard-nosed, business decision or just another political pay off?

HAT TIP:  Zero Hedge

Team Obama: Utterly Clueless

Mark Noonan40 Comments

From the Daily Caller:

President Barack Obama will present his “jobs plan” on Wednesday at a company which is shipping jobs overseas.

Obama is scheduled to present his “jobs plan” in Apex, N.C., on Wednesday at the headquarters of WestStar Precision.

WestStar is a high-end, specialty manufacturer that just opened a new facility in San Jose, Costa Rica — creating many new jobs there, but not in the United States…

You have to wonder – are they really this stupid?  Obama has a massive staff of people dedicated to his well being and re-election…did no one check to see just what this photo-op backdrop was up to?  Couldn’t they find one company out there which actually expanded its American facilities of late?  Which didn’t just ship a bunch of jobs overseas?  Making this even more bizarre is the fact that the company owner is a Democrat who has donated to Obama’s campaign.

If we on the GOP side were allowed to write the script for Democrat implosion in 2012, we couldn’t have done better than this.  One thing I’d like to know – you liberals out there who are convinced that Obama is on the side of the little guy…here he’s going to an event to tout his job program at a company which ships US jobs overseas  rather than endure all the laws and regulations you liberals have imposed…and the owner of the company is not some GOP “millionaire and billionaire” fighting tenaciously for his corporate jet tax break…he’s a liberal Democrat.

Explain that, if you can.