From CNN:

Barbour, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said Obama’s recent travel is an indication that the new president is already running for reelection.

“He’s going to those places for a reason,” Barbour said on CNN’s State of the Union. “I mean David Axelrod, who’s his campaign consultant/manager/guru really is one of the brightest, most capable people in American politics. And so this is what we’ve become accustomed to, the perpetual campaign.”

In the last few weeks, the president has visited Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, and Colorado — all states that voted Republican in the 2004 presidential election but flipped to the Democrat’s side in 2008. Obama has also visited Arizona — the home state of his former rival, Sen. John McCain, and a state he’d like to turn blue in 2012.

The White House has said the president specifically visited those states because they are among the hardest hit by the nations sputtering economy and home foreclosure crisis.

Obama isn’t very good at being President, but he is superlative out on the stump, reading from a teleprompter…so, his handlers have decided that the best thing Obama can do is go read speeches. We can expect Obama to pretty much do nothing else between now and November of 2012. What he would do after that, if he’s re-elected, Lord only knows.

As for the staff lying – it is an obvious lie to say that Obama is only visiting States which are hard hit by the mortgage meltdown…California (Obama by 24 points), Alabama (McCain by 22 points), Hawaii (Obama by 45 points), Kansas (McCain by 16 points), Illinois (Obama by 25 points), Alaska (McCain by 22 points), Idaho (McCain by 25 points) and Oregon (Obama by 16 points) have also been very hard hit by the mortgage meltdown – the commonality between these not-visited States is that if Obama loses any that he won in 2012 then he’s toast, while its next to impossible for him to win those States he lost…so, why bother going?

Face it, Obama and his minders only care about you if you are part of the 2012 re-election campaign. And thus Obama’s staff has lied…it isn’t the first time, and we can almost rely upon it that its not even in the last 100 times it’ll happen.

Other than the Brokeback Mountain, Joker dead guy, I don’t know anything about who or what has been nominated. Seems that movies in 2008 were pretty much a run of worse crap than usual.

Have at it, if you have a mind.

Jerry Pournelle’s suggestion:

The best way out of this mess is the German Economic Miracle way: suspend regulations. All regulations. Make it easy to start new companies. Let ingenuity work to allocate capital. Of course we won’t do that.

He’s right – we won’t, but think how much fun this would be, if we did. You see, liberals are of the opinion that without strict regulation, we won’t know what to do and we’ll make a hash of things. This liberal thinking changes completely when the subject turns to abortion and pornography, of course – but if we’re waiting for logic and common sense from liberals, we’ll be waiting a long time. Meanwhile, taking all regulations off the economy just might scare liberals to death – they’d be instantly worried that Robber Barons would force people to accept a dollar a 14 hour day to work at dumping toxic waste from the gun factory into the soy milk supply.

Seems all that illegal Chinese money did what it was intended – got Hillary to be a willing stooge of her ChiCom paymasters:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday urged China to keep investing its substantial foreign-exchange reserves in U.S. Treasury securities, arguing “we are truly going to rise or fall together.”

China is the biggest foreign holder of U.S. debt, which helped finance the spending binge the United States went on before the current economic crisis. Some experts have expressed concern that China’s substantial holding of U.S. debt gives it increased leverage in dealings with Washington because any halt in Chinese purchases would make it more difficult to finance the government bailout and stimulus packages.

I like that MSM bias, too – we went on a “spending binge” under President Bush, but what we’re doing under Obama is “stimulus package”. Someone got a way to differentiate between “binge” and “package”? Ah, well…

Anyways: it was announced earlier that Hillary had taken China’s horrific human rights record off the table…so, we’re officially unconcerned with forced abortions, torture, slave labor…but we don’t want the Chinese to buy our bonds, lest we be forced to print money to pay for Obama’s asinine economic policies. And when China decides to, say, move on Taiwan, just what will Hillary do? Get tough with the people who have the receipts for her illegal campaign contributions? Demand the largest holder of US debt back off?

Its going to be a loooong four years.

Seems the spirit of rebellion is spreading:

Hundreds of people turned out on a cold and windy Saturday morning for an anti-tax protest outside U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore’s office in Overland Park.

The rally, which was promoted by Americans for Prosperity’s Kansas chapter and other groups, was directed at Moore for his vote for the $787 billion stimulus package.

Just imagine how angry people will be when the actual Obama plan makes a mess of everything…this flame of liberty could end up becoming a wildfire of freedom spreading across the country in 2010 and 2012.

The odd thing is that with Obama being the semi-socialist we all feared he would be, he’s actually setting up a situation where we really will get change we can believe in…it just won’t be from him.

UPDATE: Revolt of the Kulaks

Gee, the American GULAG, isn’t:

Obama’s Government Report: Guantanamo is Humane and Abides by Geneva Conventions

President Obama in one of his first actions in office ordered the closure of the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay. He also ordered an in-depth study of the prison camps to decipher whether the terrorists and alleged terrorists at Gitmo are properly treated and that U.S. troops are abiding by the Geneva Conventions.

The report, part of which was leaked today, shows that Gitmo “complies with the humanitarian requirements of the Geneva conventions” and that the prisoners are treated with dignity. A Pentagon official, who spoke anonymously, said that it showed that the Bush administration created a humane detention camp that has been unfairly characterized by critics. Speaking of the remaining 245 detainees there, this official said the report underscored that if the men are moved, they may “go from a humane environment to a less humane environment,” according to the New York Times.

Just what made you liberals out there even think for a moment that Gitmo was inhumane?

It can only be explained by a knee-jerk hatred of anything America does, especially if the President is Republican at the time.

This should get liberals foaming at the mouth:

Look, I don’t always agree with Coulter. She sometimes seems to scream black whenever the media screams white (a strategy that works only about 85 percent of the time). I’m pretty sure we really did evolve from apes—myself within living memory. And I enthusiastically endorse any and all non-bloodletting sex acts done in private between consenting adults—as long as you don’t then ask me to pay for the resulting child, abortion or course of medication.

But the whole way liberals work is to redefine manners and morals in such a fashion that conservative common sense automatically becomes hateful. If you note that women and men are different, you’re misogynistic. If you denounce the destruction of marriage in black communities, you’re racist or moralistic. If you call for the defense of America against the world-wide Islamist menace, you’re a bigoted warmonger. If we take this garbage seriously even for an instant, we spend our whole lives playing catch-up, saying sorry, going on defense.

Coulter’s answering strategy is to blow all that foolishness away. She says the unsayable thing, does it with intelligence, humor and style and gets the world exactly right far more often than not.

I have to admit, Ms. Coulter has got me laughing quite a few times, too. Anyone can be a rhetorical bomb thrower, but to do it with style takes talent, and Coulter has an abundance of that. Its all about how to stick the knife in where it does the most damage, and doing it with a smile:

(Sing to “Jingle Bells”)

Kwanzaa bells, dashikis sell

Whitey has to pay;

Burning, shooting, oh what fun

On this made-up holiday!

Kwanzaa itself is a nutty blend of schmaltzy ’60s rhetoric, black racism and Marxism. Indeed, the seven “principles” of Kwanzaa praise collectivism in every possible arena of life — economics, work, personality, even litter removal. (“Kuumba: Everyone should strive to improve the community and make it more beautiful.”)

This sort of thing just makes liberals go ballistic – they shout that Coulter is a racist, that she’s mean, that she’s hateful…yadda, yadda, yadda. It gets tiresome, these liberal accusations. Coulter is what Coulter is. Love her, hate her; whatever floats your boat. But don’t try to demonize her or dismiss her via a bit of junior-league Leninism where people become “unpersons” for having strayed from the party line.

The “Tea Party” spreads:

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter was greeted with jeers at a press conference in Cranberry Township.

Conservatives are fuming after Specter cast the deciding vote that led to the passage of President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan.

Specter, 79, acknowledges his run for re-election will be tough.

He says he’s not completely happy with Obama’s plans but he points out that he was able to cut the price tag by over $100 billion and he says he was able to increase the amount of tax cuts.

Even so, Specter acknowledges the Republican Party’s conservative wing will attempt to unseat him in next year’s primary race.

Yeah, no kidding. S. M. G. Specter Must Go!

I’m sick of having to carry around people like Specter – they take our money, take our votes and then when we really need them, they invariably jump to the other side. Did any of us ever really doubt that Specter would do something like this? Do any of us doubt that he’ll do it again? I’m sure Senator Specter is a nice guy and there are areas of agreement between him and the larger GOP, but it is when Democrats are planning on blowing through a trillion dollars of pork that we really need the GOP to stick together.

Specter should become the 60th Democrat, or become an Independent; he shouldn’t even seek the GOP nomination for Senator. Better to have an Independent or moderate Democrat we can work with from time to time than an alleged GOP Senator always available to throw us over when the chips are down. For Specter to use the alleged $100 billion he trimmed from the spendulus to garner GOP support is an outrage – if we’re wasting a trillion, telling us that we’ll now “only” waste $900 billion doesn’t really help matters. Either you think the spendulus is what is needed, and thus vote for it in total, or you think its a crock of feces, and you vote against it entirely.

I’ll be sending donations to any conservative – or even moderate GOPer who will stick by us when really necessary – rather than support Specter. And I hope the RNC and the NRSCC are reading things properly here – if there is a primary challenger, stay out of it this time and allow the GOP voters to decide who gets the GOP nomination.

The news story:

Israeli President Shimon Peres chose hard-line Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday to form a new Israeli government, giving Netanyahu six weeks to cobble together a coalition.

The question now is whether Netanyahu will form a narrow government with his hard-line allies or a broad government along with his centrist rival, Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni. His choice will have serious ramifications for the Mideast peace process.

Peres made his announcement early Friday afternoon after holding meetings with Netanyahu and Livni. An official ceremony appointing Netanyahu was to be held shortly afterward.

Peres had been meeting political leaders as he decided which candidate would be given the task of forming a new coalition in the aftermath of Israel’s national election last week.

The choice of Netanyahu was cemented on Thursday when Avigdor Lieberman, who heads the hawkish Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) party, endorsed the Likud leader.

Israel girds for war – I wonder if Obama is fully paying attention to this? Israel feels its life is at stake, and isn’t going to patiently wait while Obama has State dinners with the leaders of Iran.

Larry Kudlow takes it to task:

Reporting from the Chicago commodity pits, my CNBC colleague Rick Santelli unleashed a torrent of criticism against this scheme. Santelli said: “Government is promoting bad behavior. . . . Do we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages? This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage? President Obama, are you listening? How about we all stop paying our mortgages! It’s a moral hazard.”

All this took place on the air, to the cheers of traders. Santelli called for a new tea party in support of capitalism. He’s right.

Obama’s so-called mortgage-rescue plan amounts to $275 billion in new debt that will have little if any lasting impact on deeply corrected housing prices or the mortgage-default problem that stemmed from the insistence of government to throw home loans at lower-income people. A modest reduction in mortgage rates will have little impact on home prices, as Harvard professor Ed Glaser has shown. And by the way, re-default rates on modified mortgages have been running 50 to 60 percent. This is not going to change. So why should we throw more good money after bad?

All very correct – but we do need to do something to deal with the fact that a lot of people who are maintaining their mortgages are now sitting on houses which have lost 50% of their value. The incentive, right now, is to go out and figure out some way to purchase one of the foreclosed houses for half the mortgage a person is carrying, and then let the other house drop into foreclosure. And don’t think no one is thinking along these lines…its the logical thing to do when you’ve put $130,000 into a house which has a 400K mortgage and couldn’t sell for 200K if one’s life depended upon it.

Such, anyways, is my situation – but, of course, I won’t do such a thing. The temptation was there, and the temptation was resisted…and now after much cajolery I managed to get my lender to see a bit of reason and we’ve worked out an acceptable deal, albeit one which still has me short the $130,000 I’ve put into the place. Not everyone will be able to resist such a temptation – and if a two income family loses one source of income (something which is becoming more common as unemployment rises), it might become a financial necessity to go the route of buying a new home and allowing the old one to drop away.

Unfortunately for us, Obama seems to be concentrating most of his effort on people who are at or near default on their existing loans. I’ve got no particular problem with helping people stay in their homes – both morality and practicality decree that I be in favor of keeping people in their homes (having someone become homeless is something we must, as believers, work hard to prevent…on the other hand, even a non-believer doesn’t want yet another foreclosure on the market to drag down housing values even further). Given that Obama is a liberal, it is a natural that his plan mostly involves throwing good money after bad.

What should we do? Essentially go into bankruptcy re-organization of our housing and mortgage markets – rework loan balances to reflect current market values…the banks will lose some of their outstanding receivables, but lots of home owners will lose a lot of money they have put into houses, even if all they’ve put in is interest-only payments for two or three years (this still adds up to quite a lot of money). Everyone loses, but then we’ve got a market where house prices match house values, and thus we can start to rebuild from there. The real beauty of this plan is that it doesn’t require a taxpayer fund to cover other people’s bad moves.

Of course, we should be open for suggestions – I certainly don’t hold my idea as the be-all and end-all of existence, but I do like the factors of human solidarity and mercy it reflects. Anyone has other ideas, they should be brought forward…maybe one or two good ideas will eventually get to Obama, and then we might actually have a recovery in the housing market.