From the Office of Personnel Management:

Beginning January 1, 2010, agencies must seek prior approval from OPM before they can appoint a current or recent political appointee to a competitive or non-political excepted service position at any level under the provisions of title 5, United States Code. OPM will review these proposed appointments to ensure they comply with merit system principles and applicable civil service laws. I have delegated decisionmaking authority over these matters to career Senior Executives at OPM to avoid any hint of political influence.

But, what this is for is to weed out anyone in the bureaucracy who worked for President Bush.

Now, when we come back in to power on January 20th, 2013, I do hope that every liberal hired or promoted under the Obama Administration has his or her bags packed…

As sure as night follows day:

For a long time I have been saying (along with a lot of other people), that Hugo Chavez was running his country into the ground. He diverted investment funds from PDVSA, Venezuela’s state-run oil company, into social programs. As long as the price of oil kept rising, he could do that. Unfortunately, Venezuela’s sour, heavy crude is particularly hard to get at and refine, and requires a high rate of investment in order to keep production up. As a result, the number of barrels per day (bpd) that Venezuela produces has declined pretty sharply since he took office in 1999.

As a consequence, the money that Chavez used to paper over the cracks in his socialist paradise has vanished, and the cracks are deepening:

President Hugo Chávez has been facing a public outcry in recent weeks over power failures that, after six nationwide blackouts in the last two years, are cutting electricity for hours each day in rural areas and in industrial cities like Valencia and Ciudad Guayana. Now, water rationing has been introduced here in the capital.

The deterioration of services is perplexing to many here, especially because the country had grown used to cheap, plentiful electricity and water in recent decades. But even as the oil boom was enriching his government and Mr. Chávez asserted greater control over utilities and other industries in this decade, public services seemed only to decay, adding to residents’ frustrations.

Nothing is free. Everything has to be paid for. Pay attention, liberals – for the last time, will you please understand that government can’t get it right? That the more you turn over to government, the worse things get? There was a joke during the Cold War perhaps you younger people don’t remember:

What happens if the communists take over the Sahara desert?

Nothing for ten years. Then there’s a shortage of sand.

It might make you liberals feel good that Chavez talks about social justice, but all he’s really about is megalomania. He wants power for himself and simply to have it. He tried to gain power by a coup. When that failed, he took up the populist cudgels and managed to win the Presidency – and since that time he’s called upon paid thugs, again and again, to intimidate people in to giving in to his rule. And now he’s just shy of Stalinist in his control – and the Venezuelan economy is collapsing.

So, too, it would be in the United States, if we turned over more and more things (such as health care) to the government. Government cannot do other than get it wrong whenever it steps outside its proper bounds.

I’m in for it.

Haven’t seen it better explained than this:

To say that antipoverty programs in the United States are perverted may be an understatement. When you take into account the loss of means-tested benefits (e.g., cash assistance, food stamps, housing subsidies, and health insurance), and the taxes that people pay on earned income, the return to working is essentially zero for those in the lower two quintiles of the income distribution.

For many of the working poor, the implicit marginal tax rate is greater than 100 percent. The long-run consequence of undermining the positive incentive to work is, of course, the creation of an underclass acclimated to not working; the supplement of cash and noncash benefits with income from crime and the underground economy; and the government resorting to negative incentives such as mandatory work programs.

And ObamaCare is perfectly designed to bring the 3rd quintile in to this system. Not by entirely destroying our incentive to work (that was necessary to create a poor, dependent underclass), but by taking so much of our money that we can’t live without government subsidies. By the time Obama and his Democrats are done, those of us in the middle class who work will be taxed at rate which makes it impossible for us to give up the government benefits – we’ll be mortgaged to the liberal super-State. And, my friends, that is precisely what they want.

Our liberals are tired of dealing with us – they hate the fact that we are clinging to God, guns and the Founder’s vision of the United States. All we’re doing is getting in the way – they are astounded that they still have to argue over such entirely settled (in liberal minds) issues such as global warming, gay marriage and federally funded abortion on demand. To them, such things are the mere basics of a normal society, as liberals define it. And so they press hard for ObamaCare…because that is the lynchpin of making us dependent with increasing dependence generation after generation until we’re entirely servile, as a majority of the European population is.

This is the crucial time – this is the crucial battle. We win this, and we’ll restore the America our Founders intended and our grandfathers lived in. Lose this, and our nation will be as set on a course to death as the European nations are today.

Bubbles, bubbles everywhere – and here’s one more popping:

“A crisis of unprecedented proportions is approaching” in the U.S. commercial real-estate market, according to Randall Zisler, chief executive officer of Zisler Capital Partners LLC.

The CHART OF THE DAY displays quarterly returns on commercial property — apartment buildings, hotels, industrial sites, offices and stores — as compiled by the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries. Returns were negative for the past five quarters, the longest streak since 1992.

Property prices have fallen by 30 percent to 50 percent from their peaks, Zisler estimated yesterday in a report. The plunge has wiped out the equity in most real-estate deals that relied on debt financing since 2005, he wrote.

Only two left to go – our stock bubble and China’s real estate bubble.

George W. Bush launched the George W. Bush Presidential Center today. I was able to catch the webcast. It was nice to hear his voice again after months of hearing Obama’s voice and wanting to puke.

You can view the remarks of President Bush and Laura Bush here.

About the George W. Bush Presidential Center
The George W. Bush Presidential Center will be the centerpiece of President and Mrs. Bush’s ongoing commitment to improving our nation and the world. It will examine the ideals and principles that guided President Bush’s major decisions throughout the defining years of his presidency. The Center will be a platform from which world-class scholars can build upon these principles—contributing vital new ideas to shape current and future public policy debates..

Anyway, I plan donate to the center. If you are interested, there is an embedded form in the extended entry. Continue reading →

Can’t have it both ways – you either are, or you aren’t Catholic:

Bishop of Providence Thomas J. Tobin has responded to Rep. Patrick Kennedy’s contention that his dissent from Catholic teaching on abortion does not make him “less of a Catholic.” Saying that such dissent renders the lawmaker’s communion “flawed,” he urged Kennedy to become a “profile in courage” and to defend the unborn.

Rep. Kennedy (D-R.I.), the son of the late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, had accused the Catholic Church of fanning “the flames of dissent and discord” because of the Catholic bishops’ opposition to proposed health care reform that does not explicitly prohibit funding of abortion.

Bishop Tobin responded critically to the congressman and asked for an apology.

A meeting had been scheduled between the prelate and the politician, but a Tuesday statement from the Diocese of Providence said it had been postponed…

Kennedy is trying to straddle the fence – and it just can’t be done. Catholics – like all Christians – adhere to the belief that life is a sacred gift from God, and that life begins at conception. If an abortion is sought, it is wrong. The only time an abortion is not inherently evil is when it happens as a result of some other good desired – such as, for instance, a surgery to save the life of the mother which as an unintended result causes an abortion. The only time it is ever licit to kill is in defense of others – and even then, it is not a good thing that the killing is done. It is, some times, a sad necessity – but there is never a necessity for elective abortion.

And it is high time that the Kennedy family be called to account for itself. For decades the Kennedy’s have played upon their alleged Catholicism in order to both garner votes and give a patina of decency to some rather questionable life stories. Ted Kennedy got away with it, but we daren’t let the next generation do it. Patrick Kennedy is free to believe as he wishes – but if he’s to be Catholic, there are certain things he must believe.

Can you feel that warm glObama?

U.S. job-market optimism has reached a new low, with only 8% of Americans saying now is a good time to find a quality job — the lowest level since Gallup began tracking this measure in August 2001. Americans’ optimism about this had begun to diminish even before the recession began to unfold two years ago, when 38% in November 2007 were optimistic, and there has been essentially no improvement since February of this year, when 9% held this view.

If Obama were to start giving FDR-style fireside chats, the fire would go out…

The results of the NY-23 special election shocked quite a few of us. Knowing a number of people on the ground in the district, things looked continually better for Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. But, with an apparent deficit of 5,000+ votes, and a less than stellar performance in his stronghold of Oswego County, it made perfect sense, based on the numbers, to concede.

But now it appears that the race is too close to call, with recanvassing closing Owens’ margin of victory to just over 3,000 votes.

Hoffman’s concession — based on snafus in Oswego County and elsewhere that left his vote undercounted — set off a chain of events that echoed all the way to Washington, D.C., and helped secure passage of a historic health care reform bill.

Democratic Rep. Bill Owens was quickly sworn into office on Friday, a day before the rare weekend vote in the House of Representatives. His support sealed his party’s narrow victory on the health care legislation.

Now a recanvassing in the 11-county district shows that Owens’ lead has narrowed to 3,026 votes over Hoffman, 66,698 to 63,672, according to the latest unofficial results from the state Board of Elections.

In Oswego County, where Hoffman was reported to lead by only 500 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted election night, inspectors found Hoffman actually won by 1,748 votes — 12,748 to 11,000.

The new vote totals mean the race will be decided by absentee ballots, of which about 10,200 were distributed, said John Conklin, communications director for the state Board of Elections.

Under a new law in New York that extended deadlines, military and overseas ballots received by this coming Monday (and postmarked by Nov. 2) will be counted. Standard absentee ballots had to be returned this past Monday.

Of course, there is something suspicious about these “snafus.”

The district’s second biggest voter turnout was in Jefferson County, where Hoffman also has benefited from a turnaround since election night, gaining about 700 votes. Owens led Hoffman by 300 votes on the final election night tally. But after recanvassing, Hoffman now leads by 424 votes, 10,884 to 10,460.

Jerry Eaton, the Republican elections commissioner for Jefferson County, said inspectors found a problem in four districts where Hoffman’s vote total was mistakenly entered as zero.

How does such a thing happen? I don’t know… but at least it can be fixed.

“We sent a letter to the clerk laying out the totals,” [John Conklin, communications director for the state Board of Elections] said. “The key is that Hoffman conceded, which means the race is not contested. However, all ballots will be counted, and if the result changes, Owens will have to be removed.”

My opinion is that it is unlikely the result will change, but there are a enough uncounted absentee ballots that given certain factors, make it possible. For one thing, Scozzafava’s endorsement of Owens likely gave him votes, and these ballots are pre-Scozzafava’s dropping out. Military absentee ballots are likely to favor a Republican. As a third-party candidate, I don’t know if Hoffman will get enough of the absentee votes to swing the vote tally in his favor. Scozzafava will likely gain the most… but will Hoffman gain enough? I hope so, but I am only cautiously optimistic.

One thing is certain: it ain’t over yet. Regardless of whether the results change, all the votes must be counted.

Bingo:

Emerson Electric Co. Chief Executive Officer David Farr said the U.S. government is hurting manufacturers with regulation and taxes and his company will continue to focus on growth overseas.

“Washington is doing everything in their manpower, capability, to destroy U.S. manufacturing,” Farr said today in Chicago at a Baird Industrial Outlook conference. “Cap and trade, medical reform, labor rules.”

Emerson, the maker of electrical equipment and InSinkErator garbage disposals with $20.9 billion in sales for the year ended September, will keep expanding in emerging markets, which represented 32 percent of revenue in 2009. About 36 percent of manufacturing is now in “best-cost countries” up from 21 percent in 2003, according to slides accompanying his speech.

Companies will create jobs in India and China, “places where people want the products and where the governments welcome you to actually do something,” Farr said.

Now, don’t let the corporate bosses off the hook, either. Farr does seem like a fairly smart guy, but a very large percentage of the corporate bosses are weak-minded cretins who’s only goal is to make the quarterly balance sheet look better…and thus shoving manufacturing out of high-cost US to low-cost China works out well for them. What we have here is the perfect storm of corporate and government idiots who are – unintentionally or not – conspiring to completely eliminate manufacturing in the United States. We’re being told that we’ll just have to get used to less American manufacturing (and farming…and mining) but that, don’t worry, we’ll still make plenty of money sitting in cubicles answering customer service phone calls and emails (until all of that is outsourced, too).

When I’m talking of “Make/Mine/Grow” I am asserting that if we lower the cost of making, mining and growing things in the United States, we’ll get more of same done here – which will create more wealth – which will mean more jobs – etc. We’re being quite insane, right now – outsourcing our manufacturing to China which then uses its profits from selling things to us to buy our bonds so that we can borrow more money to bail out more financial institutions. Does anyone think this can be sustained? Or that making windmills will replace all the other things we used to make, mine and grow here in the United States?

My good people, we should be coddling our manufacturers – doing everything we can to soften the blows of this down economy and doing everything we can to encourage people to start up farms, mines and factories. We don’t have to buy stuff from China – really, we don’t. We can make stuff – we’re clever enough. We don’t have to be thumb-sucking leeches doomed to default – but we will need a change in government to get the ball rolling.

UPDATE: And as I was saying about China…