I know, you liberals out there are going, “huh?” with that look of confusion you normally have on your faces made even more pronounced. Don’t worry, I’ll explain.

You see, Obama can’t tax to get the money for his Porkenstein “Stimulus” Bill. Neither can Obama borrow the money – with the world heading into deep recession, there just won’t be the global funds to, willy-nilly, buy $800+ billion in US bonds in addition to normal bond sales to finance our debt/deficit. So, what is an Obama to do? Print it, of course. But printing money is inflationary, and inflation is essentially a hugely regressive tax on the poor, especially poor people on fixed incomes. Obama is going to bail out CEOs and unions on the backs of the poor.

But, surely, he’ll throw some taxes on The Rich in order to make them pay their fair share, right? Well, no. You see, Obama has placed caps on CEO pay and this means that there will be less The Rich income to tax…and more and more compensation paid to The Rich in non-monetary (and thus un-taxed) instruments. CBO estimates (PDF) that Obama’s plan will reduce tax revenues from The Rich by more than a billion dollars per year – and if you think The Rich are going to lie down on this, you’re nuts. The Rich will just have the corporation buy the Manhattan penthouse and then allow The Rich to live in them as part of their compensation package.

The thing is, liberals, is that you can’t do liberalism – as it is based upon false premises, anything you try to do with it will come out wrong. You’re starting out here with a desire to stimulate the economy and help the poor – what you’re going to do is provide swag for corrupt entities and harm the poor, while The Rich get richer. I know the adage is “if at first you don’t succeed try, try again”…but we’re on experiment Number 1,056,095,009 in Liberalism, and each of the first 1,056,095,008 failed miserably. After a while, we have to go with the adage, “don’t be a freakin’ moron”.

The Washington Times notes that the FEC complaint i filed against Hillary Clinton last year was finally taken up.

It was just over a year ago that conservative blogger Matt Margolis filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission surrounding questionable fundraising practices by then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The complaint dealt with a $380,000 “cooks and dishwashers” fundraiser in New York, which sought campaign contributions ranging from $1,000 to $2,500. As Mr. Margolis pointed out, there was at least one donor who admitted to being an illegal immigrant, while another claimed she was illegally reimbursed for her contribution.

This week, the FEC took up the complaint – purporting “contributions were made in the name of another and contributions were made by foreign nationals” – and has now just ruled that it “found no reason to believe” Mrs. Clinton violated FEC regulations and “closed the file.”

It is worth noting that a significant part of the reason the case was “closed” was not so much because no wrongdoing was found, but because the complaint was based on news accounts, not “personal knowledge.” Some questionable donations were in fact returned.

If you liberals really go for this, all you’re doing is building the bonfire which will result in Civil War II:

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said the government should look into creating a “truth commission” to investigate the Bush administration’s Department of Justice.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said that such a commission, which would answer to both Congress and the executive branch, could probe Bush administration policies on torture, interrogation and surveillance and “get to the bottom of what happened” during the eight years the Bush administration grappled with the legal war on terror.

Leahy called his proposal a “middle ground” between those critics of the Bush administration seeking to prosecute officials, and others wishing to concentrate on the future as opposed to investigating the past. “We need to be able to read the page before we turn it,” said Leahy.

Which assertions by Leahy – one of the more nasty, leftwing partisans in the Senate – are utter nonsense. This would be a political witch-hunt controlled by the kook left and designed to make conservatism illegal. The worst sort of screwball, leftist, anti-American lies would be presented as rational arguments and Bush Administration officials – possibly including President Bush, himself – would be presented as evil men who need to “confess” in order to gain absolution. Nothing doing, lefties.

You do this, and there will be a fight.

Dear friends and even you liberals:

We here at the Noonan household are experiencing the end of life for a beloved family member, and thus I am not in good position to regularly update the blog. I will try to update later today with new entries, but at the time of writing this entry, its quite late and I’ve had an exhausting day making arrangements – so the brain is mush (more so than usual) and I’m afraid anything I wrote at this moment would be rather incoherent (once again, more so than usual).

Meanwhile, the earlier entries all seem rather popular, so please have at them – and, of course, you now have this open thread to discuss just how bad the Obama economic disaster will be…plus just how miserable will be Obama’s foreign policy as it relates to Iran and the larger War on Terrorism.

I ask for your patience and, of course, your prayers for our family as we enter in to this trying time.

UPDATE: Thank you all for your kind words and prayers. As of this moment (10:06 PM, PST, Wednesday), she still clings to life, and we’re just waiting for the moment when she’ll go home to the Lord.

The first in an unfortunately continuing series of what happens when liberalism occurs:

An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Roger Barnett, 64, began rounding up illegal immigrants in 1998 and turning them over to the U.S. Border Patrol, he said, after they destroyed his property, killed his calves and broke into his home.

His Cross Rail Ranch near Douglas, Ariz., is known by federal and county law enforcement authorities as “the avenue of choice” for immigrants seeking to enter the United States illegally.

Trial continues Monday in the federal lawsuit, which seeks $32 million in actual and punitive damages for civil rights violations, the infliction of emotional distress and other crimes. Also named are Mr. Barnett’s wife, Barbara, his brother, Donald, and Larry Dever, sheriff in Cochise County, Ariz., where the Barnetts live. The civil trial is expected to continue until Friday.

Here we have the confluence of liberal ideology on immigration, property rights, civil rights and judicial activism. To think that an American citizen can be hauled into court by illegal immigrants shows just how out of touch liberalism is with reality – and only because liberalism exists is there anything other than laughter at any foreigner, illegally come into the nation, bringing such a suit. They have no standing – they have no business being here; they should be arrested for harassing the rancher, not accorded respect in our courts.

Thank you, liberalism.

Geesh!

What if Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh were up front at Bush’s press conferences in the East Room?

Well, as network correspondents sat in the second row, liberal radio host Ed Schultz managed to snag a seat up front, right next to Helen Thomas.

Schultz told Politico’s Jonathan Martin that his front row was seat was assigned to him.

Yep, we can rely upon the MSM and the Obama Administration to be completely straight with us – no mutual back scratching, no wink/wink, nudge/nudge going on here at all…just move along, you Neo-con BusHitlerian idiots…who do you think you are? We won, don’t you know?

Republican activists around the country will be celebrating President Lincoln’s bicentennial in a special way this year.

From February 10th to the 12th, the online rightroots will be pushing an effort called, “$20 for NY-20.” Their goal will be to increase the number of small donors investing into a very winnable seat. Jim Tedisco is running for Congress to lead the fight for middle class families, small businesses and farmers that are the heart and soul of the District.

Lincoln’s bicentennial falls on the 12th, it’s only fitting that we take this opportunity to rebuild the Party by targeting the first real race of 2010.

NY-20 is a Republican district that we can take away from the Democratic supermajority. Jim Tedisco is the only candidate in the race for New York’s 20 Congressional District with a proven record of delivering real property tax relief, strengthening the economy, creating more jobs and reforming government so it’s more open, accountable and transparent to the taxpayers.

This is an effort that only adds to the momentum kingmakers like Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and RNC Chairman Michael Steele have given to Tedisco’s Congressional bid.

You can donate to Tedisco’s campaign by clicking here.

These are the wages of turning a blind eye to the illegal cross-border traffic between Mexico and the United States:

Mexican Brigadier Generak Mauro Enrique Tello Quiñones, along with his bodyguard and driver, were kidnapped, methodically tortured, and then driven out to the jungle and shot in the head.

This ambush did not take place in a remote area of the country, but in Cancun, one of Mexico plush tourist attractions.

Their bodies were found Tuesday in the cab of a pickup truck on the side of a highway leading out of town. An autopsy revealed that both the general’s arms and legs had been broken.

Tello, 63, had retired last month from active duty and moved to the Caribbean resort city to work with the mayor in the fight against drug cartels that have permeated a large part of Mexican society.

The full-dress military funeral last Wednesday was attended by President Felipe Calderón his defense secretary, attorney general, security secretary, and other high-ranking officials, who flanked a general’s coffin as an honor guard.

Spokespersons for the military and other government agencies issued expressions of outrage over the violent triple killing, in a drug war that cost the lives of more than 5, 000 people last year. The military has become increasingly active in Mexico’s initiatives to destroy the cartels and the leadership has vowed it will not allow Tello’s death to remain unsolved or unpunished.

According to U.S. officials, the attach on the general intended to drive a city into submission. One representative said, “That’s why it was done. (The General) was going in to take back the streets.”

Perhaps he was – but given the way Mexico has worked lately, there would be no surprise if we later discovered that the general was killed because he was trying to kick one gang out in order to allow another gang in. This is not to cast aspersions on the memory of General Tello – for all I know, he was an honest and upright officer, but the plain fact of the matter is that gangland corruption is rife in Mexico from top to bottom, and it largely stems from the way the drug cartels have managed to grow strong moving illegal people and goods across the US/Mexico border with the “wink/wink, nudge/nudge” cooperation of the Mexican government, hungry for that American money which has kept Mexico’s economy afloat.

But now the cartels are so strong and have intimidated or co-opted so many parts of Mexico’s government and security forces that they are essentially vying for control of Mexico – each cartel being run by a war lord who wants to be top dog in his area. Its a frightening lapse back into the Mexican Revolution early in the 20th century which ended up costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Mexicans and which led to two American interventions in Mexico. The bloody and mostly senseless revolution spilled over several times into the American side of the border, and with larger populations and vastly improved communications of all sorts, what happens in Mexico will just pour over our border in larger numbers, faster, than it did back in the 20th century.

There is, unfortunately, not much we can do to help Mexico – prickly national pride prohibits any American attempt to intervene in Mexico unless we want to invade the whole country and take over, which is an action no American government would ever contemplate. But we can take the lesson – because we, too, turned a blind eye. We made much noise of securing the border and fighting the drug trade, but we really did neither. We wanted the cheap labor and didn’t want to be bothered with having do to the right thing, which was to have enforced our laws, given that all democratically created laws are to be enforced not only for the good of the law-abiding, but for the law-breakers, as well. The rising death and despair in Mexico is a direct outgrowth of two peoples and two governments unwilling to enforce their own laws.

It is to be hoped that the Mexican government will find those hard nosed, patriotic and honest Mexicans who will carry the fight to the drug cartels until they are destroyed. But my fear is that we’re seeing merely the first act of a long, bloody tragedy in Mexico – and a tragedy we helped create. Always, always, always do the right thing – no matter how painful it seems at the moment, its less painful than what will come after, if we take the easy way out.

Typical Washington, DC stuff:

Despite claims of cutting costs, new report by the Congressional Budget Office reveals the new Nelson-Collins “compromise” stimulus bill will cost at least $838.2 billion, an increase of $18.7 billion from the House-passed stimulus bill.

This is contrary to reports, like this article from CNN, that the Nelson-Collins compromise would reduce spending from the House bill:

But Collins also said she could not support a bill as large as the $819.5 billion package passed by the House last week. “We don’t want a package that is too small because that will end up just wasting money. On the other hand, we’re very leery of having an enormous package that would not be necessary and would just boost the federal deficit,” Collins told CNN as Nelson nodded in agreement.

As noted earlier on this blog:

But a closer look at the new 778-page bill (based on information available on Sen. Nelson’s site) reveals that the new Nelson-Collins compromise increases spending on over 130 government programs over the original House bill.

In the end, of course, no one knows what is in the bill – not really; it will end up being some low-level bureaucrats and Administration officials who will really decide how the money is spent, and they’ll spend it with a mind towards their future prospects for advancement. The only thing we can be sure about is that a lot of money will be spent – allegedly by borrowing, but I don’t know who has got $800 billion to loan us right now, so we’re probably going to end up printing a very large portion of it. As a good friend of mine points out, when you dump this much money on an economy, it will have a positive effect – temporary, to be sure, but it will be there. Of course, the fine print here is the utter catastrophe of dried up investment funds and runaway inflation which will be the price we, the people, end up paying for this.

A lot of grief is – justifiably – being directed at our three wet-noodle Republican Senators who signed off on this dog of a bill. But, no matter – it is to be expected that some GOPers would fall for it, given that we’re the Stupid Party for a reason (here you can listen – painfully – to Senator Specter try to defend his vote to Laura Ingraham). No sense in expending our efforts on Collins, Snowe and Specter – we really must concentrate fire on Obama, Pelosi and Reid. They are the authors of this bit of national destruction, and any time we spend on the “wets” of our party is that much less time spent on the people actually responsible for our impending economic doom (though if Specter gets in trouble in his 2010 re-election bid, I’m not exactly going to extend myself to help him out – one must pay the price of one’s folly, after all).

What can we do? We failed in 2008 to craft a winning message and put forth a winning candidate – now our running away from the Bush record seems to have been a large mistake; we could hardly have done worse in 2008, and had we stoutly defended the previous 8 years, we might have done better. Who can tell? But one thing I know from my studies of history is that doing the right thing is always best – and any attempt to toss someone under the bus to save one’s self is always punished. For now, we just have to bear up under it – issue our warnings, offer our alternatives, and start working to regain power…with Virginia in November being our first step.

Keep faith and keep a stout heart – this, too, shall pass…and remember, when we’re in national bankruptcy, it really is only money, and only liberals really care about such things.

Even without the Obama-Pelosi-Reid Fire-Up-The-Printing-Presses-Lets-Bankrupt-the-World “stimulus” package – from Gateway Pundit:

The Congressional Budget Office predicted that the current economic recession will end in the second half of 2009 without the trillion dollar stimulus.

From The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2009 to 2019 (pdf):

CBO anticipates that the current recession, which started in December 2007, will last until the second half of 2009, making it the longest recession since World War II. (The longest such recessions otherwise, the 1973–1974 and 1981–1982 recessions, both lasted 16 months. If the current recession were to continue beyond midyear, it would last at least 19 months.) It could also be the deepest recession during the postwar period: By CBO’s estimates, economic output over the next two years will average 6.8 percent below its potential—that is, the level of output that would be produced if the economy’s resources were fully employed (see Figure 1). This ecession, however, may not result in the highest unemployment rate. That rate, in CBO’s forecast, rises to 9.2 percent by early 2010 (up from a low of 4.4 percent at the end of 2006) but is still below the 10.8 percent rate seen near the end of the 1981–1982 recession. (emphasis added)

Truth be told, I doubt that – all else being equal, if we don’t pass Obama’s scam I believe we’ll emerge out of this recession in 2010. With Obama’s plan I see no end to the recession. Still if I’m right or CBO is right it is clear that Obama is wrong – all his talk of end-of-the-world gloom and doom is just so much political bovine feces.