The news story:

California’s jobless rate surged in February to the highest level since 1983 while unemployment in Oregon and Nevada climbed above 10 percent for the first time in more than two decades.

Unemployment in California rose to 10.5 percent from 10.1 percent in January, its Employment Development Department reported today in Sacramento. Neighboring Oregon’s jobless rate rose a full percentage point to 10.8 percent, and Nevada’s increased to 10.1 percent.

“The West Coast is more heavily dependent on real estate and the decline there has been more pronounced” than in the rest of the U.S., said Sung Won-Sohn, an economics professor at California State University-Channel Islands in Camarillo, California. “We are not seeing any signs of stabilization in the job market.”

Unemployment across the nation may top 9 percent by the end of the year, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg, and it could go higher.

I’m guessing it will top out at 12-15% nationally, but for my Nevada I wouldn’t be surprised if 20% unemployment comes our way…tourism is down, gambling is down, Yucca Mountain has been shut down, there’s less and less demand for the products of Nevada’s mines. As for California – they seem bent in Sacramento in killing whatever golden geese are left. Tax increases when you’re bankrupt is stupid…but the Govinator and the CA legislature seem bent on it. Nary a thought given to genuine budget cuts…while the attempts of Nevada’s governor to cut the budget are being met with the usual “little, old ladies and children will die!!!!” nonsense from the usual suspects if we dare cut a penny from the budget.

It’d be nice if the Federal government was rational, but Obama and his Democrats seem determined that spending and tax increases are just what the economic doctor ordered…that plus the prospect of a massive carbon tax to fight mythical anthropogenic global warming. I’m hopeful it will change, of course – but I don’t see that happening until after the 2010 elections.

Its just spreading and spreading:

They carried signs, chanted slogans, urged motorists to honk horns. There was even a folk singer urging the audience to “take back” the country.

Sounds like your average protest, right?

The difference here: many of the protesters were political conservatives who had never felt it necessary to take to the streets before.

And yet there they were, about 300 strong, lining both sides of Main Street in front of Ballard Park on Saturday for a “Tea Party” protest against President Barack Obama’s $3.5 trillion budget and the government’s effort to “stimulate” the sagging national economy through spending.

“The primary focus is a concern over the direction the policies of the current administration are taking us,” said Andrew “Skip” March, a Ridgefield resident who helped organize the protest, news of which spread like wildfire on the Web.

“We were pleased and a little surprised by the number. We thought we’d have 100, maybe a little more,” March said…

…they urged the country to embrace the conservative principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility.

“The stimulus package, the spending bills, they have not been handled well. There is too much pork,” said Brian Blackman, 50, a tech support trainer from Ridgefield taking part in his first-ever protest.

Blackman said Barack Obama has proven himself to be just another politician who will say anything to get elected.

“He was supposed to bring positive change and he most certainly did not,” Blackman said. “If anything, he is making things worse and my kids are in serious trouble right now. The economy was in trouble before, but now we’re in serious trouble. I don’t see a bright spot and I’m worried about the future.”

Now, had you liberals actually run on a tax and spend policy instead of hiding behind rhetoric about deficit reduction and tax cuts, you might not have this problem of people having a sense of betrayal by The One…of course, had you run on that then we might be hearing of Senator Obama making speeches denouncing President McCain’s policies. But now you’ve lied in front of everyone, and the lie is being noted – and anger is growing.

UPDATE: In Connecticut, 300 show up to protest Dodd and Obama, 40 to protest AIG executives. I think we’re winning this debate.

UPDATE II: More than 4,000 showed up in Orlando!

Singer Lloyd Marcus told the crowd assembled in Lake Eola Park on Saturday that he was going to give them his take on the first days of the Obama administration.

Then he shrieked.

That pretty much summed up the mood in the park Saturday afternoon, when more than 4,000 people attended the Orlando Tea Party, a conservative rally aimed at expressing discontent with Washington.

“This is maybe the greatest single gathering of God-fearing patriots in the history of Orlando, Florida,” local conservative radio host Bud Hedinger, who emceed the event, told the crowd.

The attendees, many of whom said they’d heard about the rally on Hedinger’s radio show, brandished flags and homemade signs bearing slogans such as “Repeal the pork or our bacon is cooked” and “Obama lied, liberty died.”

“We’re really scared about what’s happening in our country,” said Debby Whisenand, 71, of Largo in Pinellas County. She waved a sign that read “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money” on one side, and “You can’t blame Bush anymore” on the other.

The disgusting tale of Dodd gets worse by the day – read this and weep, fellow Americans…and then ask the question:

How is it that we’ve tolerated this nonsense for so long?

We must put an end to this corruption, once and for all.

Courtesy of the United States Federal Reserve:

The dollar dropped the most against the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners since the Plaza Accord almost a quarter-century ago as the Federal Reserve’s plan to purchase Treasuries spurred speculation that it’s debasing the greenback.

“What it introduces is the problem of the currency to the extent that the Fed is buying what isn’t desired by foreign holders,” said Bill Gross, co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., in an interview on Bloomberg Television on March 19. “The Fed can keep interest rates where they want to keep them, at least for a 6- to 12- to 18-month period of time, but it will have consequences down the road.”

The U.S. currency weakened beyond $1.37 per euro this week for the first time since January as the central bank’s decision to increase its balance sheet by $1.15 trillion lowered yields, making American assets less attractive. The Norwegian krone and the New Zealand dollar rallied as the Fed’s move spurred advances in commodities.

The dollar depreciated 4.8 percent to $1.3582 per euro yesterday, from $1.2928 on March 13.

We can’t spend money we don’t have – all the Fed has done is go into our pockets and lift out some of our wealth and they’ll now use that money to buy up the toxic assets, which will then become property of we, the people of the United States of America…meanwhile, the corporate fat cats and corrupt politicians who brought this mess upon us will not only get off scot free, they’ll also be able to start ripping us of, again, with new scams now that their previous swindle has been passed on to the American taxpayer.

Enough is enough – time to start taking back our country; and one of the places we can start is by doing away with the Federal Reserve and returning our currency to the gold standard. Its not that gold is superior, but that gold can’t be easily manipulated like fiat currency can. Sure, Uncle Sam can still fire up the printing presses if we are based on gold, but that means the paper dollars will lose value, not the gold dollars; hold your money in gold, and you know its safe from government pick pockets.

How do we do it? Well, as it turns out, since the time the Federal Reserve was established, our currency has lost approximately 99% of its value. This means that a penny in 1909 is worth about a dollar in 2009. We re-mint and re-print our currency and turn in our current money for the new money at a 100-1 ratio. Have $100 fiat dollars, you’ll get $1 gold dollar. Get paid $20 per hour, you’ll get paid 20 cents per hour (which, for an 8 hour day, works out to $1.60 per day…were you working 12 hours a day, as they did 100 years ago, you’ll make $2.40 per day and that, dear friends, tells you how much working class income has really increased over the past 100 years…but where that $1 in 1909 wasn’t taxed directly at all, your $2.40 is still going to get hit with about 30 cents in direct taxes in 2009). A $400,000 house is now $4,000. And so on and on. The government would be required by law to keep at least $1 dollar in gold for each $10 in paper currency in circulation, so our dollars will be stable (though, of course, having greenbacks will still amount to a zero interest loan to the government).

Discuss.

At 61%, according to Rasmussen:

Sixty-one percent (61%) of U.S. voters agree with President Obama’s decision to put more U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Twenty-five percent (25%) are opposed to putting more troops in the war-torn country, and 14% are not sure in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Republicans are more supportive of the president’s action than are members of his own party. Seventy-two percent (72%) of GOP voters support the decision to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, compared to 54% of Democrats. Sixty percent (60%) of voters not affiliated with either party agree.

There is a window of opportunity here for Obama to go strong for victory in Afghanistan – and what will destroy popular support is not casualties, but any perception that we are not fighting for victory. As long as the goal is to win, the people will broadly support the effort. The test for Obama will come when we have our first high-casualty action and/or when there is the first incident of large numbers of non-combatants killed (the enemy will be working diligently to set up civilian deaths) – at that point, Obama can double down and go forward to victory, as President Bush did, or he can wither under the MSM/leftwing attacks on the Afghan effort.

Time will tell how Obama does here.

It really, really is getting time for a revolution:

In yet another amazing case of tax chutzpah: California congressman Pete Stark has improperly claimed a Maryland lakefront home (assessed at $1.7 million) as his primary residence in order to qualify for a special real estate tax break:

A senior member of the House’s tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, Stark said he was unaware that he might not be eligible for the tax break. Asked whether it was questionable for him to receive it, he said, “I guess it is.”

To qualify, a property must be the owner’s principal residence: He or she must live there at least six months of the year, use the address for voter registration and driver’s license purposes, and file Maryland income taxes. Stark is registered to vote at his wife’s parents’ address in San Lorenzo and has a California driver’s license…

…Earlier this month, Congressmen Eliot Engel, a lifelong resident of the Bronx, was outed for claiming the Maryland real estate tax break on his Maryland home (formerly owned by ABC’s Ted Koppel and Wonder Woman Lynda Carter) assessed at $938,000.

Both are Democrats, naturally – but, more importantly, here is the evidence that our leaders are entirely disconnected from us and no matter how much they say they care about Joe and Jane Average, what they are really all about is increasing their own power and wealth. Both Stark and Engel should be immediately expelled from the House as our Constitution requires a Representative to be a resident of the district he represents…anyone want to take bets on whether or not Queen Nancy I will move for said expulsion?

Unfortunately, changing this is going to be entirely upon conservatism – our liberals simply will not admit that they have a problem, and if they do concede the point they are very unlikely to understand that the reason hatred is whipped up over people like Governor Palin is because the ruling elite perceives such people as a threat. Palin is one of us, and she wouldn’t put up with the sort of nonsense going on in DC…Jindal, also, is one of us. There are some Democrats on our side – the eleven who voted in the House against the Spendulus are Democrats who understand that the people’s business isn’t bailing out failed banks or providing payoffs for corrupt special interests of whatever party. And we must nor forget that some GOPers are very much part of the problem (Senator Specter, we’re looking your way…).

A little revolution, now and then, really is a good thing – and what we need is a top to bottom reform of government; a re-affirmation of core, Constitutional principles; a new birth of freedom in America…and we’re only going to get this if we cut like a scythe through the current ruling class at election time.

Another tea leaf for us political junkies to read:

Republicans topped Democrats in national fundraising in February, according to numbers released Friday that show surprisingly poor results for the party now in control of the White House and both houses of Congress.

The Democratic National Committee raised only $3.26 million in February, the first month under its new chairman, former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, according to the February campaign finance reports. Two years ago, under Chairman Howard Dean, the committee raised $5.5 million in February.

The Republican National Committee, on the other hand, pulled in $5.1 million last month, giving a boost to new Chairman Michael Steele after a rocky first few weeks of his tenure.

The DNC reported $8.6 million on hand and $7 million in debt, while the RNC reported $24 million in the bank and no debt.

Money is the sinew of politics – it allows you to choose your strategy and carry it out…as Obama and his Democrats showed with their massive fundraising in 2008. Now, given that a lot of Obama/Democrat funding was illegal, we can expect that in 2010 and beyond they’ll continue to raise funds any way they can…so, we really can’t expect to out-spend them…but we can raise the funds necessary to go toe to toe with them.

Per Gallup, at any rate:

A majority of Americans have been supportive of the use of nuclear energy in the United States in recent years, but this year’s Gallup Environment Poll finds new high levels of support, with 59% favoring its use, including 27% who strongly favor it.

Obama won’t move on this because his energy mind is entirely in the keeping of the kook environmentalist left – so, America will suffer with less energy than it easily could have…and, of course, we GOPers get another nifty issue handed to us on a silver platter, especially if Obama’s “carbon tax” passes and peoples’ heating and cooling bills skyrocket.

Read it, and be warned:

“But you don’t understand,” the Colombian said. “We’ve seen this before.”

“He’s right, my good friend,” the Cuban said. “We Latin Americans know the pattern. Believe me we do.”

The American tried to shrug off the Latin Americans’ warning. To his consternation, he found that he couldn’t. Peron, Fidel, now Chavez, they insisted. The emergence of misrule, corruption and economic stagnation in Latin American nations follows a particular sequence or progression. Now the sequence was unfolding in the United States.

“It starts with a cult of personality,” the Cuban explained. “One man declares himself the jefe, the caudillo, the big leader.”

Do keep in mind that the man who accepts his party’s nomination in front of 80,000 people has a problem with megalomania. Add in servile followers and a fawning media, and we can have lots of problems…unless we nip this in the bud in November of 2010.

Its getting nicer and nicer to be part of a Party with some backbone…as well as drop-dead gorgeous governors:

Governor Sarah Palin submitted her federal economic stimulus appropriation bill to legislators today to provide jobs and needed infrastructure improvements in Alaska under the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Governor Palin is accepting just 55 percent of the available stimulus funds, all for capital projects. This amount includes the funds the state accepted last month for Department of Transportation projects.

“We will request federal stimulus funds for capital projects that will create new jobs and expand the economy,” Governor Palin said. “We won’t be bound by federal strings in exchange for dollars, nor will we dig ourselves a deeper hole in two years when these federal funds are gone. For instance, in order to accept what look like attractive energy funds, our local communities would be required to adopt uniform building codes. Government would then be required to police those codes. These types of funds are not sensible for Alaska.”

And, liberals, I understand that Governor Palin is still all about shooting wolves from helicopters…and I understand, further, that she’s still Christian and all that. And she’s smarter than your Obama, by a large amount. So is Jindal.

2012 can’t come fast enough.