“When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance, so that they may appear to others to be fasting. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden. And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.” – Matthew 6:16-18

Why the Biblical quote? Because I got this in my e mail from Justin Rubin at MoveOn:

We don’t have a budget crisis in Washington. We have a moral crisis.

When Congress can seriously debate forcing veterans into homelessness and cutting food aid to pregnant women and children, while giving tax breaks to billionaires, something is very, very wrong.

That’s why this morning, I joined, along with the heads of seven other major progressive organizations, in an ongoing fast launched by religious leaders to protest the brutal and unjust budget cuts being debated in Washington…

So now a desire to not spend money we don’t have is an immoral action? And the liberals are asking us to engage in a very public, religious act in opposition to a proposal to not spend non-existent money? And they’re doing this during Lent when a lot of Christians fast every Friday? Sorry, but this is just too outrageous.

The immorality of not spending non-existent money on the kids of today? How about the immorality of saddling today’s kids with crushing debt because liberals really won’t agree to any cuts, at all? Budget cuts are brutal? How about the brutality of abortion, which liberals want to be taxpayer funded? And this leaves aside the propriety of calling God in to a political battle. When I pray for Obama and the rest of our leaders, what I pray for is that they will listen to God and go along the paths of mercy and justice…I don’t pray they’ll be bent to my political will on this, that or the other issue. It just wouldn’t be fitting to do otherwise…but here come our liberals, people who normally despise all religion, playing upon peoples’ religious feelings in order to protect every last penny of government spending.

A truly disgusting display of both cynicism and hypocrisy.

Yeah, sure – from CNS:

A political review of open records requests smacks of “Nixonian” tactics by the Department of Homeland Security, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Thursday.

Two investigations found that Freedom of Information Act requests sent to the DHS were reviewed by Obama administration political appointees.

“Through the course of an eight-month investigation, the committee has learned that political staff under the DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano have corrupted the agency’s FOIA compliance procedures, exerted unlawful political pressure, on FOIA compliance officers, and undermined the federal government’s accountability to the American people,” Issa said…

And, of course, all of us on the right knew that Obama’s assertions about being open and honest were lies from the get-go – we know they left; an ideology based upon a lie cannot do other than lie in operation. But even though lies are inherent in liberalism, this still does not excuse liberals from having to obey US laws.

Unfortunately, as long as the Justice Department is run by a corrupt ideologue like Eric Holder, justice will not be done – until, that is, we get Obama out of office there is no chance of punishing these people. And so our task is to investigate and find out the facts and wait for a more honest Administration to come in to office. But once that is done we cannot forget this…everything which has been done by the Obama Administration must be reviewed by the next Administration and any one who has been found to break the law must be strictly punished. It is the only way we can instruct liberals that they are not above the law. For far too long we have let them get away with it, and we can’t afford that any longer.

From the Wall Street Journal via Instapundit:

Brazil has gone from importing 77% of its oil from foreign sources in 1980 to importing no oil by 2009. A great success story in conservation and alternative energy? Not really. Total Brazilian oil consumption still more than doubled. The biggest factor is that Brazil increased its domestic oil production over the last two decades by 876% (not a typo). Most of that production has come from offshore exploration.

And that, my friends, is how its done. When you’re short on something you need, as a nation, you go about seeing if there is any way you can increase the amount of it in your country. The United States, of course, is a much larger oil consumer than Brazil and so the chances of us becoming entirely oil-independent are small – but we can massively reduce the amount of oil we import. All we need to is vigorously exploit the resources we currently have as well as aggressively explore for more such resources within our borders and off our coasts.

It will take time, but all the time we’re spending will be used employing American workers and increasing national wealth – and if you want to get all “alternative energy” about it, you can make it so that 10% of all government revenues from domestic oil production are ear marked for alternative energy research and and construction. Vastly increase our oil supplies, vastly decrease the amount of money we send overseas, vastly increase American employment, vastly increase American wealth and pay for the replacements for oil. This is an all-around winning idea. There’s only one trouble with it – liberals hate oil, especially domestic oil, and simply won’t agree to do it…they’d really prefer we suffering increased poverty and weakness as long as it results in less American oil production.

Yes, they are that stupid and blinded by ideology. Get used to it – and get cracking on doing whatever you can to ensure their defeat in 2012.

Seriously, find the money to put this up from now until election…altering it from time to time as he screws up even more.

From Rasmussen:

…A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% of Likely U.S. Voters think making deeper spending cuts in the federal budget for 2011 is more important than avoiding a partial government shutdown. Thirty-one percent (31%) disagree and say avoiding a shutdown is more important. Twelve percent (12%) are not sure…

Are you listening, GOP “leadership”? While you might be frightened rabbits about a government shut down, the people aren’t. Really, this isn’t 1995…Barack Obama is no Bill Clinton and the MSM is no longer in monolithic control of the debate. We can shut down the government and it will be Obama and his Democrats who get the blame – as they should because it is entirely their fault if it does get shut down. We’re out of money and they are refusing to make anything more than symbolic cuts…and the American people are on to their scam.

Here’s what you do – instead of seeking to compromise where we might agree to $30 billion cuts (which is a massive come-down from the $100 billion promised), why don’t we pass a new bill cutting $200 billion? Do that, and we might be able to force the Democrats to pony up $50 billion…and once that is done, pass a supplemental bill cutting $500 billion. Then you’ll get them to agree to the $100 billion. Its called “politics”. This is a thing where you go about seeking negotiating advantage for your side – where you try to force the other side to come over to you, rather than the other way around. This cane be hard – but it is fabulously easy when the people are concretely backing your view…the people want the cuts, for crying out loud. Our hand is a straight flush, the Democrats are holding a pair of 3s…call their bluff!

The news today that a rampaging mob of Afghans murdered at least 12 UN workers brings us to a point where we have to decide, once and for all, our course in Afghanistan.

The mob was deliberately stirred up after Terry Jones – that Florida pastor whom, you might remember, threatened to burn a Koran last 9/11 – burned a Koran on March 20th. That the mob rioted 12 days after the incident shows that people choose to use the Koran burning as an excuse for violence…this was not a spontaneous event. It was deliberate, calculated and cold-blooded murder…and likely done so that the mullahs who fired up the crowd could gain some aspect of wealth or power for themselves in Afghanistan. This cruel act of barbarism indicates a level of wickedness among some in Afghanistan which can only be described as demonic.

And, so, what are we to do?

First and foremost, we can’t fight for an Afghanistan which either allows such barbarism, or which proves itself incapable of stopping it. Either the Afghan government will have to at least attempt to arrest, try and execute the mullahs who started this, or we will have to disinterest ourselves in the fate of the Afghan government. If the Afghan government does show itself at least willing to try to suppress these mullahs, then much can still be done with it. Supposing the Afghan government does act, then we can work out plans to help…and to take the burden of killing these barbarians if the Afghan government proves incapable of doing it.

If, however, the Afghan government cannot or will not even try, then it is time for us to leave. Not immediately. First, the people in Afghanistan who did this will have to be taught a lesson – an exemplary application of swift, hard justice. As we will be leaving – and leaving the Afghan government to its fate – we can dispense with the absurd rules of engagement and simply go after and kill as many Taliban, al Qaeda and associated groups and people as possible. Hunt down and destroy as much of them as possible – and take care to let the Afghans know that if there is ever any terrorist attack against the United States or its allies and interests fostered from Afghan territory, we will be back…and we will come back bringing a very hard justice.

The one thing we can’t afford to do is wring our hands and not do anything – we cannot allow our troops to fight for a society which abets the brutal murder of people trying to help for the asinine reason that a Koran was burned thousands of miles away by a person no Afghan is every likely to meet. It is now time for the Afghan government to show that it is on the side of civilization – on the side of basic, human decency. If it is, then we can continue to aid it…if not, then we have no more business being there other than to ensure that Afghans know the wages, at least, of killing Americans.

From Gallup:

Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, was 10.0% in March — down from 10.2% in mid-March and 10.3% at the end of February, but above the 9.8% at the end of January. U.S. unemployment was 10.4% at the end of March a year ago.

I tend not to lend much credence, these days, to the official numbers – the Bureau of Labor Statistics has, very conveniently for Obama and the banksters, continually reduced the number of Americans in the work force…reductions which are not credible and have dropped our labor force participation well below the 10 year average. If the labor force number was the same as it was in 2008, we’d have an official unemployment number of around 11%. Given that this is more in line with what the Gallup poll shows, I tend to go with Gallup’s number.

There is no doubt, however, that the labor market has experienced some marginal improvement over the past 6 months or so – and that is good. But the bad news is that employment is always a lagging indicator. It starts to drop quite a bit after the economy hits the skids. Given such things as the continued collapse in home sales, the rapid rise in gasoline and food prices and the low and flat average number of hours worked per week (if employment was really improving, we would have first seen a spike in the average work week…the first thing employers do is add hours; they only add new workers when they simply have no other choice) it seems to me that we’re heading back in to recession…and thus the good jobs numbers we’re seeing now are a mere blip on the road down.

Can I be wrong? Of course. Lots of things can happen to alter the results – of course, among “lots of things” is a Chinese real estate bubble collapse, a sovereign default in the Eurozone, an inability to find buyers for US bonds; there aren’t too many things among “lots of things” which would make things better, but plenty which can aggravate an already difficult situation. My advice is to save as much money as you can, get out of debt as swiftly as possible and just be ready for anything.

UPDATE: A look at the underlying economic data demonstrates that, at best, we’ve had no more than the weakest possible recovery…and plenty of data points out there reflect continued recession (such as the record use of food stamps). Not only are we not out of the woods, we haven’t even struck the path out…and it might be that we’re heading further away from that path rather than closer to it.

I think Victor Davis Hanson has pretty well nailed it:

…Even though Qaddafi was a “revolutionary” anti-American figure, and even though his family and minions were intertwined with Western universities and intellectuals, Obama was worried about yet a third time being a day late and a dollar short, especially amid televised violence. Because he neither understood the rag-tag nature of the rebels (and either did not grasp or did not wish to grasp the jihadist elements among them), nor appreciated that tyrants like Qaddafi, quite unlike Mubarak and a Bin Ali, without compunction kill and “like it,” Obama had no idea that, in fact, the rebels could fizzle, and may, in fact, not be just Westernized intellectuals who want to turn Libya into Dubai.

…Then there were Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and Samantha Powers who saw Libya as a postmodern goldmine. Think of it: an apparent cakewalk victory; restoring Obama credibility after the opportunistic and late endorsements in Egypt and Tunisia; a way to show that liberal interventions are tough, compassionate, and competent; subordination to the United Nations, the Arab League, and Europe; outsourcing of congressional approval to international prerogatives; using the military not for U.S. interests but for “humanitarian concerns” to stop “genocide.” And on and on.

So they bullied an otherwise distracted Obama (NCAA playoffs, golf, a Rio jaunt) into a sure-thing, “landmark” intervention on the cheap. Note very well: Key here was an important fact that the saner heads who knew something about strategy and the use of military force (e.g., Richard Holbrooke and James Jones) were either dead or gone. Robert Gates tried to warn Obama, but was overwhelmed…

There has clearly been a complete mis-reading of the events in the Moslem world. None of the people running the foreign policy show understand that all of the regimes of the Moslem world – save that of Iraq – are to some extent or another illegitimate. For US policy, it became a matter of deciding – do we keep with the corrupt regimes we’ve dealt with for decades, or do we cut loose from them? Do we stay out of it and let things fall where they may, or do we intervene to demonstrate ourselves as being on the side of change in the Moslem world?

In my view, correct US policy is to ditch the tyrants and help the rebels…not just in Libya, but everywhere (not necessarily by direct, military intervention…some rebellions can be sustained to victory just by indirect American support). In service of such a policy, we should have intervened in Libya weeks before we did – when the rebels were right outside of Tripoli and it seemed that Gaddafi’s days were numbered (this is, as it turns out, when people like Hillary decided we should move…trouble is, Hillary and the rest have no military experience…lacking this, they didn’t realize that celerity of movement is vital in war, and if we were to intervene we’d better do it in two or three days rather than two or three weeks). We’ve now ended up doing the right thing at the wrong time – and we’re not even 100% on the right course because we have not committed to removing Gaddafi regardless of what it takes.

Obama could still luck out – Gaddafi’s regime could just fold. Loyalists can break free and try to make deals with the rebels. But one doesn’t trust to luck in war…and it is equally likely that as Gaddafi’s forces start to have some success that some of the rebel leaders will seek an accommodation with Gaddafi. My gravest concern is that we’ll wind up with a quasi-war…US air power allowing the rebels to maintain control of a slice of Libyan territory but unable to press on to victory over Gaddafi…at that point, we’ve got an open-ended military commitment, we’ll likely have to shell out heavily for humanitarian assistance, and we’ll be lowered in the eyes of the world as a nation which couldn’t even humble a two bit dictator like Gaddafi.

UPDATE: Want more proof of the utter idiocy of US policy as regards these tyrannical regimes? Well, here it is – US taxpayer dollars were used to bail out a bank partially owned by Gaddafi’s regime. I’ll keep saying it until everyone agrees with me because I’m 100% correct in this: THE UNITED STATES MUST HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH TYRANNICAL REGIMES.

From The Monitor:

A new law enforcement bulletin warns that members of drug cartels have been overheard plotting to kill federal agents and Texas Rangers who guard the border, officials in Washington reported Thursday.

The bulletin, which was issued in March, said cartel members planned to use AK-47 assault rifles to shoot agents and Rangers from across the border. It did not name the cartels…

The drug cartels control the border – that is the dirty, little secret of border security at the moment. Because we won’t commit the resources to ensure that no one illegally crosses, the cartels have stepped in to take control where we refuse. The next, logical step in this is to control territory beyond the border – up to the places where drugs, illegal immigrants and other elements of cross-border contraband are distributed around the United States. It is a business move – ensuring that the supply chain is safe and operates smoothly. And this is just the duplicate of what the cartels have done in northern Mexico…first control the Mexican side of the border, then control the territory next to the border.

And what is happening in northern Mexico will happen here – meaning, all that relentless massacre of innocents which goes on unchecked in Mexico will start to happen here. The cartels will first go after the most energetic of the law enforcement agencies and once they are killed or cowed, they’ll go after the then-defenseless political structure, forcing it by a combination of bribery and murder to allow the cartels to do as they wish. The southern regions of the United States will slip out of effective control of both the State and national government.

Unless, of course, we stop them. Stopping them requires putting whatever amount of force proves necessary to ensure that not a single, illegal border crossing can happen. Then, with their money supply vastly reduced by inability to transport goods and people, we go after the cartels, themselves…not to arrest them, but to kill them. This will be a lengthy and expensive campaign, but it must be done. We cannot allow a pack of criminals to take control of part of our nation.

Our problem, as usual, is in our leadership – with additional problem from leftist activists who don’t care how many people are murdered or corrupted…all that matters to them is that a theory about America (ie, that we’re racists who must allow all to enter because we were wrong to ever conquer the American southwest) be enforced. Obama won’t do what is necessary, and any conservative government coming after Obama will face loud protests and intensive legal efforts to ham string the operation of justice along the border. But, with all that, we still must do it – for ourselves, and for the Mexican people. Defeating crime is the primary activity of any government…if peace and justice are not secured, then the government is failing in its prime duty.

From USA Today:

U.S. consumers face “serious” inflation in the months ahead for clothing, food and other products, the head of Wal-Mart’s U.S. operations warned Wednesday.

The world’s largest retailer is working with suppliers to minimize the effect of cost increases and believes its low-cost business model will position it better than its competitors.

Still, inflation is “going to be serious,” Wal-Mart U.S. CEO Bill Simon said during a meeting with USA TODAY’s editorial board. “We’re seeing cost increases starting to come through at a pretty rapid rate.”…

Whatever one might thing of Wal Mart – plus or minus – it is Wal Mart’s business to know what is really happening with consumer prices. This is Wal Mart’s bread and butter. This is a far more reliable forecast than the twaddle coming out of the Federal Reserve that inflation is tame…something anyone who buys groceries or gas knows to be a lie.

The American public are being squeezed. On the one hand is Bernanke printing money like mad to support the banks, on the other is Obama who is deliberately refusing to allow Americans to create wealth…so, our prices are going up as our dollars decline in value while our wages remain flat or down because the economic pie is not growing. Because of this I fully expect another recession – and I expect it will begin in a few months, thought it won’t show up in the data until late this year or early next (just like the recession of 2008 really began in 2007, though hardly anyone noticed it in 2007). As Americans have to spend more and more of their disposable income on the basics there will be that much less demand for other goods – and as demand for non-essential goods is already low, any further drop will swiftly put the economy back in to recession.

Coupled with this is the looming financial crisis. Thanks to money printing, Bernanke has avoided a resumption of the financial crash which began in 2008 but it must be remember that the financial system is every bit as insolvent today as it was in September of 2008. And, in fact, it may be more so as free money from the Federal Reserve has likely made banks and investment firms even more irresponsible than they were before (and its not like they were exemplars of financial probity in 2008). Add in the coming collapse of the real estate bubbles in China, Canada and Australia; looming financial default in the Eurozone and the crushing weight of Japanese reconstruction and all the elements are in place for a full blown Depression.

Hopefully we can avoid it – but unless something changes very soon or we have an incredible run of good luck, I don’t see how we get out without a lot of pain.