The sad tale of a man who’s only interest – per his own words – is re-election:

House Democrats debated ways to address job creation at a caucus meeting Monday night, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has promised colleagues the chamber would take up a jobs measure after it completes its health care overhaul bill. That makes it unlikely to pass into law this year.

Why is ObamaCare more important than jobs? Because getting Americans back to work doesn’t provide campaign donations while getting ObamaCare through ensures that leftist moneybags keep the big bucks flowing in. Reid has said that his every move since being re-elected in 2004 has been geared towards his re-election in 2010…and that means that Reid doesn’t have time for such trivial matters as rising unemployment.

And neither, of course, do the rest of the Democrats – in fact, I think that the Democrats kinda like the rise in unemployment. After all, people on unemployment are dependent upon government, and thus will look kindly upon whomever promises to extend and/or increase benefits. Where’s the upside, to a Democrat, in getting people back to work? Especially if its work in the private sector entirely disconnected from any government activity?

Do keep in mind that if your goal is power, then you’ll do a lot of things which don’t make sense to people who have goals other than power. A politician who cared about Americans would do his best to get the private sector rolling again. A politician who cares about power calculates what is most likely to retain and expand his personal power. Some times the two things – power and people – can mesh in a happy equilibrium, but most of the time they are in direct conflict, and thus we see our liberals – from Obama, Reid and Pelosi on down – continually cutting the United States off at the knees. There’s no benefit, for them, in a strong, vibrant American population – but plenty for them in a crushed, demoralized America dependent upon government hand-outs.

Becoming the longest serving public nuisance in American history:

The Senate is a resolutely superlative place, so it was resolved that the august body on Wednesday will open its session by saluting Sen. Robert C. Byrd, Congress’ longest-serving member…

…Here are some of Byrd’s statistics: He was already married to his beloved Erma for nearly four years when Thanksgiving was deemed a federal holiday in 1941. He began his political career four years later as a member of West Virginia’s House of Delegates. He remains the only member of Congress to earn a law degree while a member of the federal legislature, according to his Web site.

He’s a complete horror, I’m afraid – he’s got federal tax dollars appropriated to build monuments to himself. Just completely entrenched; dug in tighter than a tick on a dog. The best argument yet in favor of term limits. Had we had a limit of three Senate terms, Bryd would have been forced out when I was 12 – instead of hanging around when I’m nearly 45.

The Culture of Death keeps trying to hide itself:

In a bizarre move that will cost British taxpayers thousands of dollars, the government has sued itself in order to hide the number of abortions done on babies with very mild physical disabilities. The pro-life movement in England has been trying to force the government to reveal the number of those abortions.

Last month, the Information Tribunal issued a landmark Freedom of Information Act ruling upholding a previous ruling by the Information Commissioner in favor of the Pro-Life Alliance’s bid to disclose the abortion figures.

Now, the Department of Health is taking the Information Tribunal to court in an attempt to prevent the publication of stats on babies who are aborted, such as those who merely have a cleft palate.

Julia Millington of the Pro-Life Alliance told the London Telegraph last week, “It is a reprehensible waste of public money and court time to continue a fruitless battle to hide this information.”

It is simply shameful that any child is aborted for something like physical defects – its eugenicist nonsense; anti-human cruelty. But, hey, if its save the NHS a pretty penny, then it must be good, right? Can you imagine how much it would cost NHS to fix a cleft palate? Goodness, start doing things like that and there won’t be sufficient pay raises for the unionized employees…

Because those stock prices are not sustainable:

Stocks are overvalued and the US economy is likely to fall back into a recession next year, well-known analyst Meredith Whitney told CNBC.

“I haven’t been this bearish in a year,” she said in a live interview. “I look at the board and every single stock from Tiffany to Bank of America to Caterpillar is up. But there is no fundamental rooting as to why these names are up—particularly in the consumer space.”

Agreed – there is nothing in the US or global economy which warrants the sort of stock price run-up we’ve seen since March. Even if one wishes to keep faith with Obama and Keynesian economics, the best one could expect is that stock prices would not have fallen further than they did in March and, perhaps, have a 10% or so upswing. Right now, the S&P 500 is 64% above its March low – and there’s nothing to back it up.

From what I’ve been able to piece together, it seems that Treasury and Federal Reserve – by varied means – pumped money in to stocks in order to inflate the price. My theory as to why they did this revolves around the fact that the major banks are actually insolvent and pushing their stock price higher was the only means available to hide this fact – the rise in stocks allowed the banks to pretend they had profits, you see? What has happened now, however, is that the boom in stocks has taken on a bit of a life of its own – the suckers are really pouring in to this, the largest sucker rally since the Depression.

When will it all come crashing down? I’m sticking with March – not because I’m some sort of primo number cruncher, but because I just can’t see anyone keeping the ball floating up there longer than that, especially as I expect 4th quarter 2009 and 1st quarter 2010 economic numbers to be flat or down. Of course, it could go on longer – and, in fact, it is within the realm of possibility that the stock market will fly much, much higher – perhaps even in to record territory – before it comes down. All that depends on how much money fools are willing to put in to the market. But I don’t think we’ll see that, because the fools are really out in force in China and I expect that bubble popping to be the trigger for our stock slide…though it could be vice versa.

Its all smoke and mirrors, good people – we’re in a depression and its going to be a long, hard and slow climb out of it…and the longer we keep up with stimulus, bail outs and funny money, the worse it will get and the longer we’ll have to go before we’re free of it. Harsh as it would have been, it would have been better in September of last year if we had just let things completely collapse – we’d already be on the path to recovery, by now. But, as it is, we’re just putting off the day of reckoning.

HAT TIP: Mish’s

I wonder if anyone outside the ranks of Obamania really thought the numbers were true to begin with?

Here’s a stimulus success story: In Arizona’s 15th congressional district, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that’s what the Web site set up by the Obama administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says.

There’s one problem, though: There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona; the state has only eight districts.

And ABC News has found many more entries for projects like this in places that are incorrectly identified.

Late Monday, officials with the Recovery Board created to track the stimulus spending, said the mistakes in crediting nonexistent congressional districts were caused by human error.

“We report what the recipients submit to us,” said Ed Pound, Communications Director for the Board.

Which immediately begs the question: who was it in the “15th district” who reported to the White House?

Anyways, the whole story about the stimulus has been bogus from the start – the money wasn’t ever intended to do anything other than payoff political cronies. Tack up a sign on an already planned road construction progress, call it “stimulus” and have at it.

We have to take it as a given that anything stated by this White House is false unless verified by at least one outside source – the mendacity we’ve seen since day one of Obama has become just too obvious.

Detailed in his idiot piece about Sarah Palin. You can read it, if you’ve a mind to waste effort on the obtuse. A quote will do:

Obama knows the long odds against a right-wing populist winning the presidency, no matter how good she looks in a skirt (or running clothes), brandishing a gun. He shouldn’t be too cocky, however, because the death of the center is ultimately a problem for him and the whole country. If the Palinistas seize the GOP, they probably cannot take the White House. But their brand of no-prisoners partisanship sure can tie up Congress.

‘Cause an un-tied Congress is so wonderful? Because the current Congress is doing such a good idea?

Thomas is just repeating the mistake of liberals past – assuming that the favorite of the populist/conservative American population is the problem. The actual problem, of course, if Obama’s ardent leftism and the leftism being rammed through by Pelosi and Reid in defiance of the popular will. But for people like Thomas, the ideal world is to have someone like Senator Lindsey Graham (RINO-NC) co-sign America’s death warrant, thus allowing liberals to say their idiocy is “bi-partisan” (and it should be noted that moderate, go-along, make nice-nice Graham is tanking in the polls – were he up for re-election in 2010, he’d be toast).

Our best move, for now, is to just let these fools yammer on – the more they think Palin is un-electable, the closer we get to a President Palin, or President Just-Like-Her, or, at any event, a President Not-At-All-Like-Obama.

Who knew?

Gov. David Paterson openly criticized the White House on Monday, saying he thought it was a terrible idea to move alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspected terrorists to New York for trial.

“This is not a decision that I would have made. I think terrorism isn’t just attack, it’s anxiety and I think you feel the anxiety and frustration of New Yorkers who took the bullet for the rest of the country,” he said.

Paterson’s comments break with Democrats, who generally support the President’s decision.

When you’re losing a liberal like Patterson, you’ve got some problems…but, I guess, there is a limit to just how stupid at least some liberals are willing to be.

UPDATE: More from Matt at The Buffalo Bean…

Because whenever the government steps in, its always a good thing, right?

Here is a question: You, as a taxpayer, now own a stake in General Motors. 50 billion dollars of taxpayer money was invested in the company. Now, if the company decides it is in the best interest of their bottom line to invest some of that money overseas, would you be upset?

That’s a question being asked of GM today. GM is using some of the money floated to them by the US government to bolster its operations overseas. The upset is that part of the justification for investing tax dollars in GM was to create (or save) jobs here in America.

The company argues that they are necessarily global and boosting sales overseas helps the taxpayer, helps investors, and creates jobs. Everyone benefits from a stronger company.

Don’t work on building better cars. Don’t work on lowering domestic production costs. For cripes sake don’t even think about lowering bloated union payrolls and benefits! Just move the production overseas and generate “increased” profits by virtue of paying foreigners starvation wages. Its the story of corporate America over the last 20 years – stupidly destroying itself at home in order to make the quarterly results look good in time to pass out the bonuses.

This is what comes of both corporate and government stupidity – GM and the UAW drove GM in to bankruptcy, so along comes Uncle Sam to bail out the failed corporation…and off goes the failed corporation to look after itself rather than do something useful for the US. And don’t think the UAW will squawk much about this – as long as the generous pension benefits keep coming in and union members in the US keep the donations flowing to the Democrat party, you’ll hear nary a peep out of the UAW. There might be come pro-forma complaints, but they won’t amount to anything in reality.

Government can’t do business. Large corporations can’t do business. What we need is to encourage new, small and mid-sized companies which are in the making, mining and growing industries and then get the heck out of the way.

We’ll have to see how this plays out:

Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman has “unconceded” in New York’s special House election after reports that the vote margin between him and Rep. Bill Owens (D) has narrowed.

Hoffman conceded the race on Election Night after learning he trailed Owens by 5,335 votes. But the Syracuse Post-Standard reported last week that the margin had shrunk to 3,026 votes after recanvassing.

Hoffman appeared on conservative commenatator Glenn Beck’s radio show this afternoon. Beck asked the him if he would “unconcede.”

“Yes, if I knew this information at the election night, I would not have conceded,” Hoffman said. Beck asked him again if he was “uncondeding” and Hoffman replied “If that’s possible, yes.”

Officials in the upstate New York district are still counting over 10,000 absentee ballots, which also had Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava’s name on them.

Among many other things pointed out by Victor Davis Hanson is this:

Cato vs. Nero

I visited the Reagan ranch yesterday—for the first time. In my 20s and 30s I remember the media mantra about the ex-governor’s getaway: Reagan’s wealthy cronies had supposedly secretly bought him in a sweet-heart-deal a Hearst Castle-like estate where he looked down at hoi polloi below and did photo-ops chopping wood. I half expected “the ranch” to be comparable to Oprah’s nearby estate.

But I was struck by the array of simple farm tools in the garage, the do-it-yourself trails and fences, the unadorned home of about 1700 sq. ft of rustic simplicity and ad-ons with basic old GE appliances, no insulation, wiring conduited onto the whitewashed walls, low ceilings, basic, unevenly settled tile floors. In terms of comfort or frills, the Western White House “ranch” was probably not comparable to “John’s room” inside the Edwards’ “Two Americas” estate, or the garage at one of John Kerry’s mansions, or Al Gore’s boathouse.

How odd that the supposed plutocratic Reagan lived like the proverbial Philemon and Baucis, while today’s populists—Gore, Kerry, Kennedy, Edwards, Rev. Wright, etc., fill in the blanks—seek to emulate Nero’s Golden House.

I’ve been there, too. Along with my wife and Matt when Matt and I were giving a talk on Caucus of Corruption for the YAF. The ranch is a slice of heaven and there is no wonder, once you’re there, why the Reagan’s bought the place – isolated as it is, and even more so when purchased in the mid-70’s. Immediately upon arriving, the strongest urge one gets is a desire to never, ever leave. But it was the house which most astounded – and what struck me as most moving was, actually, Reagan’s tool bench…precisely like the tool bench of millions of middle class do-it-yourselfers. The only thing at the ranch which lets you know that Ronald Reagan was President of the United States is his Secret Service ball cap and the presidential seal emblazoned on the lawnmower.

In that house and at the ranch I understood, finally and completely, why we loved Ronald Reagan – why the left and the MSM could never break the bonds: because he was one of us. While time has blurred the edges of leftist hate for Reagan, the fact remains that from his first entry to politics until his retirement from public life, the left kept up an endless drumbeat of hatred. Just as they, also, kept it up (and keep it up) about President Bush and, now, Sarah Palin.

You see, being one of the people is not a function of wealth – you can be poor, or rich or in between. It isn’t about birth. Its all about being one of the people – liberals don’t understand this. And I don’t think they ever will. But those in politics who are of the people will win and retain the loyalty of the people – and will always triumph over those who claim to speak for the people, rather than meeting them on the level.