From Powerline:

The New York Times runs a long story on Senator Christopher Dodd’s crashing reputation among Connecticut voters without once mentioning that Dodd is a, well, you know what. The Times does note that Connecticut is a heavily Democratic state. It does mention that Dodd was “once known for championing populist initiatives like the 1993 Family Leave Act” (!). It does identify some of those interviewed for the story as, well, you know what, but never Senator Dodd himself. And it also mentions that “the firestorm has encouraged Republicans.”

Those who can draw inferences will be able to name that party!

Its quite simple – when a GOP runs afoul of law or morality, he’s clearly ID’d as a Republican. When a Democrat does such things, its like pulling teeth to get the MSM to clearly and consistently identify the miscreant as a Democrat.

From IMAO:

Now I guess we get to find out what it’s like to have a president as dumb as George W. Bush sounded.

That is how much deficit spending Obama’s plans will create over the next 10 years:

President Barack Obama’s budget would generate deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year over the next decade, according to the latest congressional estimates, significantly worse than predicted by the White House just last month.

The Congressional Budget Office figures, obtained by The Associated Press Friday, predict Obama’s budget will produce $9.3 trillion worth of red ink over 2010-2019. That’s $2.3 trillion worse than the White House predicted in its budget.

Worst of all, CBO says the deficit under Obama’s policies would never go below 4 percent of the size of the economy, figures that economists agree are unsustainable. By the end of the decade, the deficit would exceed 5 percent of gross domestic product, a dangerously high level.

The latest figures, even worse than expected by top Democrats, throw a major monkey wrench into efforts to enact Obama’s budget, which promises universal health care for all and higher spending for domestic programs like education and research into renewable energy.

The figures should make everyone stop for a moment and realize that even if you’re a liberal’s liberal, its time to retrench – to pare down spending to the most crucial basics and get ourselves out of debt. After that is done, we can go into a liberal spending frenzy, if that is still desired. If we go Obama’s route it will mean not just a lot of debt, but an entirely crushed economy in the United States and around the world.

And its not just the money, folks: this will cost lives. Right now, we have a certain level of surplus wealth which allows us to help out, via private and government action, various impoverished groups around the world. As Obama’s crushing deficits make us progressively poorer, there will be less and less available for the most vulnerable around the world – we need to make wealth, Obama wants to soak it all up in deficit spending which will grind down not just the ability to make wealth, but to maintain the wealth we’ve already got.

A human catastrophe is coming our way, unless we can stop this madness by Obama and his Democrats.

1,000 demonstrations set for April 15th:

While WND has been tracking 170 individual tea parties across the nation, one group has announced it is planning rallies in 1,000 cities and towns on April 15.

The American Family Association, or AFA, is coordinating 1,000 Taxed Enough Already, or TEA, parties to be held at 12 p.m. in front of city halls across the nation.

The organization launched a Tea Party Day website just days ago so volunteer organizers may register their protests with AFA. The website also provides a list of other protests across the nation that are not organized by AFA.

I think we can do it and we should do it – heck, try to get 2,000 demonstrations and 2,000 people at each event. If 4,000,000 Americans take time out of their day to protest against tax and spend liberalism, we’ll have the ball fully rolling on a new, American revolution.

…then we’d better just close up shop:

So Chris Dodd admitted he misled CNN, telling them on Tuesday he had nothing to do with the loophole that mysteriously found its way into legislation and paved the way for AIG’s bonuses to be paid. The following day, Dodd confessed to CNN’s Dana Bash that he in fact wrote the loophole, though he said he did it at the behest of the administration and with the knowledge that he would lose the amendment altogether if he did not comply…

…Stepping back for a second, Chris Dodd is already in a bit of trouble in his reelection bid, based on recent polling. Obviously, this further complicates matters. Dodd is now directly associated with two of the most distasteful aspects of the current financial meltdown: getting a sweetheart mortgage from the CEO of a company that was a major player in the subprime mess, and now authoring the loophole that allowed AIG to pay $165 million in bonuses after already taking scores of billions of bailout dollars , all at taxpayer expense.

“Vulnerable” doesn’t even begin to describe Dodd at this point – all we need is a credible challenger and a reasonable message, and we should bury Dodd under a landslide, and make this a pivot point for some large gains in 2010. Democrats are getting heavily tarred with the brush of political corruption, and if we add what will likely be a poor economy (at best) in 2010, a good GOP campaign should allow us to get within striking distance of a House majority and chip down the Democrats Senate majority to the 55 or 54 range.

The defeats in 2006 and 2008 seem to be turning into a blessing in disguise – by forcing out the corrupt elements of the GOP and greatly weakening the RINOs, we are becoming a stronger party more able to effectively present a credible alternative to Democrat corruption and incompetence. We’ll still have to fight very hard as the Democrats and their MSM allies will pull out all the stops, but if we do fight hard, I believe that 2010 will signal the revival of a conservative, GOP favored by the people to govern the country for quite a long time.

No, we’re not referring to Obama’s economic policies, but how our DHS Secretary refers to terrorism:

SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, in your first testimony to the US Congress as Homeland Security Secretary you never mentioned the word “terrorism.” Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?

NAPOLITANO: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word “terrorism,” I referred to “man-caused” disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.

To put it in terms that Napolitano will apparently understand, this is double-plus-ungood.

So sayeth the sages in the U.S. House of Representatives in passing HR 1586, which imposes a whopping

…90% tax to only the portion of a bonus that, in combination with other income, increases an employee’s adjusted gross income to a level above $250,000 ($125,000 for married couples filing individually) in the taxable year when the bonus was received. Therefore, employees with adjusted gross incomes of less than $250,000 (including bonuses) would not be impacted.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought ex-post facto laws were done away by the Constitution in 1798:

An ex post facto law is a law passed after the occurrence of an event or action which retrospectively changes the legal consequences of the event or action.

The fact alone that the authors of TARP and the stimulus bill are the ones who allowed the bonuses in the first place and wrote them in the legislation is in itself outrageous.

If this were done on a straight party-line vote, it would have been heinous enough, yet understandable, because democrats don’t give a whit about and/or are clueless regarding Constitutional principles, anyway.

But the thing about it is, the measure passed by a 328-90 margin, meaning that many REPUBLICANS likewise threw the Constitution under the bus today. The following is a list of 84 Republicans who at the very least, need to get schooled regarding Constitutional Law: Continue reading →

Obama pretends like he is accepting responsibility for the AIG bonus scandal, but, as I said before, Obama is still passing the buck.

Marc Thiessen, over at NRO’s The Corner, notes how Obama is directly responsible for the AIG bonus scandal, and not only that, he and the Democrats own it.

President Obama has expressed outrage over the AIG bailouts. “I’m angry too,” he says. He wasn’t told by the Treasury secretary for days, the White House says.

Why are Republicans letting him get away with it?

President Obama rammed through the stimulus bill — over Republican objections — that explicitly protected the AIG bonuses.

Here is the language from page H1412 of the final stimulus bill, SEC. 111. EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE:

em>(iii) The prohibition required under clause (i) shall not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a written employment contract executed on or before February 11, 2009, as such valid employment contracts are determined by the Secretary or the designee of the Secretary.

Not a single House Republican voted for this bill and only three Republicans in the Senate did. Obama owns it.

Let’s also keep in mind that not only was it Obama and the Democrats who wanted this pushed through quickly and without oversight, but he, Chris Dodd, and other Democrats were getting campaign cash from AIG. 

Obama isn’t outraged about the bonuses for his campaign contributors… he is outraged that the country found out.

You think we’re in bad shape:

…Russia’s dependency on oil is pushing the country’s economy into a tailspin. Oil peaked at $147 a barrel in July but has since plunged as low as $35 a barrel. As a result of the plummeting oil price and the global financial crisis, gross domestic product shrank by 8.8% in the 12 months to January, the rouble has lost one-third of its value since September and unemployment is expected to rise to 10 million by the end of the year. The Kremlin has spent more than $200bn of its reserves to cushion the devaluation of the rouble and avoid public panic.

Neil Shearing, emerging Europe economist at consultants Capital Economics, believes the situation is going to get much worse. “The news from Russia has gone from bad to worse in recent weeks. The economy looks likely to contract by 5% this year, which would be close to the drop in output witnessed during the 1998 rouble crisis,” he said, referring to the year when the government defaulted on its debts, sending shockwaves through the global financial system. “In contrast to the 1998 crisis, a weak external environment makes a sharp bounceback in growth unlikely.”…

…Unemployment is widely expected to soar to 12% this year from 6.3% in 2008 as firms struggle to access finance. “This will spell disaster for an economy in which private consumption accounts for over half of GDP,” said Shearing. About 500,000 Russians are waiting to be paid wages which are late and since inflation is running at 13%, their purchasing power is slipping rapidly.

Take financial collapse, massive unemployment, runaway inflation and add tyrant (Putin). What to you get? Risk of nuclear-armed civil war and/or risk of Putin making a mad dog attack in order to start a war to stifle dissent at home. This is not a pretty picture.

What can we do? Strengthen our alliances with nations on Russia’s borders, eschew any long-term deals with Putin’s government and then just hunker down and hope for the best.

We do need one, ya know? As for me, taking all things into consideration, I nominate this song:

Sexy Sadie what have you done

You made a fool of everyone

You made a fool of everyone

Sexy Sadie ooh what have you done.

Sexy Sadie you broke the rules

You layed it down for all to see

You layed it down for all to see

Sexy Sadie oooh you broke the rules.

One sunny day the world was waiting for a lover

She came along to turn on everyone

Sexy Sadie the greatest of them all.

Sexy Sadie how did you know

The world was waiting just for you

The world was waiting just for you

Sexy Sadie oooh how did you know.

Sexy Sadie you’ll get yours yet

However big you think you are

However big you think you are

Sexy Sadie oooh you’ll get yours yet.

We gave her everything we owned just to sit at her table

Just a smile would lighten everything

Sexy Sadie she’s the latest and the greatest of them all.

She made a fool of everyone

Sexy Sadie.

However big you think you are

Sexy Sadie.

Discuss.

UPDATE by MATT MARGOLIS: Mark, I think my vote is for “Over My Head (Cable Car)” by The Fray: Continue reading →