From National Journal:

The pace of new home sales plummeted to a record low last month, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday in a further sign that the battered housing market is only slumping further.

Sales fell 16.9 percent from January, delivering a shock to analysts who had expected a gain for last month. The seasonally adjusted annual rate of 250,000 homes sold marks the slowest pace recorded since the data series began in the 1960s…

How on earth could anyone expect a gain in home sales? Oh, I know – the “experts” are all a bunch of dimwits who just do what Bernanke says…he says the economy is getting better so they “expect” home sale so to rise. The same experts are now telling us that rising gasoline prices won’t be a problem for the US economy.

Our choices are:

1. Fire up the printing presses and shove through another “stimulus” package. This will get us two or three quarters of “growth”…and finish bankrupting the nation, leading to complete economic collapse.

2. Just stop the nonsense. Let things fall to their real value and then enact policies which allow us to start making, mining and growing more of our own stuff. This will be painful, but we’ll be out of the mess in two or three years.

What will Obama do? Hard to say – baseball season is heading our way and he might be trying to figure out who will win the pennant.

Too much happening too fast for me to figure out what will be the hot topic come the morning…so, once again, the Open Thread.

Things are shaping up to be a fiasco in Libya. Hope to goodness that someone in the Administration is sitting down and thinking things over carefully.

Hey, maybe we should stop printing up bags of money and handing it to the banks? Could cause a problem, you know?

Pan handling our way out of fiscal crisis?

Banksters are starting to officially notice that the PIIGS of Europe are about to go under. They’re only six months behind the curve and, once again, demonstrating that financial savvy which saved us from melt down in 2008…oh, wait…

Democrats are worried that the Libya war might cause political problems in 2012. Hint to Dems: it will. Second hint: there’s not much you can do about it. Third hint: you really should be more concerned about America than about 2012 political prospects. Just saying…

As could be expected, Scott Brown has gone a bit RINO. He’s opposed to de-funding Planned Parenthood. Look, I can understand going pro-choice in uber-liberal Massachusetts (understand it even while not agreeing with it)…but even the most pro-choice person on the right has to accept that we’re broke and can’t keep shoveling money at everything. If there’s a group which needs de-funding, its Planned Parenthood. Sure, Brown is trying to square the circle by saying he’s in favor of PP’s “family planning” activities while not wanting to fund PP’s abortion activities…but if you give money for one, you free up money for the other. This is a simple thing – it is wrong to fund PP. Brown made an exceptionally bone-headed move on this…

Poll: Not much rally-round-the-flag for Obama on Libya. Support has increased, but only from 22% to 34%. I don’t think we’ve ever had a President take a more unpopular military action.

Why Don’t We Just Kill All Dictators?

The Mail has the story of photo-jounalist Lynsey Addario, taken captive by Gaddafi’s men during the fighting. As can be expected, she was beaten and sexually abused – though the story does not say she was actually raped – and threatened with death. She got out of it a lot better than CBS’ Lara Logan, who was set upon and gang raped in Egypt during that revolution. The astounding thing about it all is that any western woman would allow herself to come under the power of Moslem society. For crying out loud, a woman dressed in western clothes is considered nothing better than a whore by the Islamists – and these are people who will set off bombs in schools. Where does one expect to find the restraint necessary to protect a woman in such circumstances?

I understand – women can be perfectly fine reporters. This is not a question about whether or not Addario or any other woman out there can do a job, but a question of common sense. It is just stupid for a western woman to enter in to such a situation – not only is she at risk, but any men around her who are decent are placed in harms way…they’ll either have to stand back and let an assault happen, or risk their lives to try and stop it; a situation which would not arise if the woman wasn’t there. It is grossly irresponsible to do such a thing – to deliberately court disaster in servile devotion to an idiotic theory that a reporter is a reporter is a reporter. Circumstances must always be considered and truth must always be spoken.

This is not playing around. This is not a college discussion group. This is real life – and what is happening in the Moslem world is real fascism, real oppression, real war, real revolution…there is blood flowing and this is no place for someone to be when their very presence could provoke more violence and bloodshed. Wise up, for crying out loud.

One step at a time – from CNS:

The chair of the U.S House Foreign Affairs Committee said Monday she will introduce legislation that makes U.S. funding for the United Nations contingent on reform. It also calls for the U.S. to withdraw from the Human Rights Council.

Describing the Obama administration’s attempts to reform the HRC as a failure, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said the U.S. should quit the HRC and “explore credible, alternative forums to advance human rights.”…

As the story goes on to note, the HRC is going to have a session right quick in which six different resolutions condemning Israel will be discussed…and, you can bet on it, adopted. Who is on the Human Rights Council? Well, among the membership is:

Angola (dictatorship); Bahrain (monarchy); Burkino Faso (dictatorship); China (dictatorship); Cuba (dictatorship); Djibouti (dictatorship); Jordan (monarchy); Libya (dictatorship, membership suspended for the moment); Mauritania (dictatorship); Pakistan (dictatorship); Qatar (monarch); Saudi Arabia (monarchy)…

So, the likes of Saudi Arabia and Cuba are working out human rights…and we’re supposed to provide taxpayer support for this anti-human charade? I don’t think so. In fact, we should get out of the UN and form a new world body…one which only has membership for free nations. Just disgusts me that we’re even part of the UN…or that we allow its dishonorable presence on American soil.

Out with it – and I applaud Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for getting the ball rolling.

This article in the Wall Street Journal details how the Social Security Disability Insurance program is on the verge of bankruptcy – just a few more years and it will either require a big tax hike to keep going, or we’ll have to start draining funds from the Social Security retirement fund to pay for it – thus putting that program more swiftly on the path to bankruptcy. This quote from the story neatly encapsulates what the problem is:

…Lissette Franceschi, from Peñuelas, Puerto Rico, lost her job as a hospital nurse during a round of layoffs in 2008. The 54-year-old fell into a depression that she said required psychiatric help. “I had panic attacks, I couldn’t go out alone, I couldn’t drive,” she said. “There was no way I could work.”

Seven months after her layoff, in late 2008, she applied for SSDI and was denied for “insufficient information.” Later, a bone scan detected she had an incipient form of arthritis, and she applied again in early 2009. In November 2010, she told her story to a judge, detailing her layoff, the depression and her arthritis. She was granted $1,084 a month in benefits, retroactive to when she filed in early 2009…

I suffer from chronic pain in both my legs and, frequently, in my shoulders. I, too, suffer from anxiety – and in 2009 when both my father and my mother-in-law died, I suffered from bouts of depression. By the standards applied to Ms. Franceschi, I qualified for disability payments. Why didn’t I avail myself of them? Because it just would not have been right. I can work – might not like to work, might not want to work, but its not anyone’s job to support me if I can in any way, shape or form, support myself. Ms. Franceschi is merely abusing the system – taking money which was designed to help people who simply cannot work and using it as a means to take early retirement.

Now, its not entirely her fault. First off, the insane economic policies of the United States have ensured a dearth of wealth-creation and thus a lack of jobs in the United States. We’re essentially creating a pool of people who are casting about for any means they can find to obtain an income – and if they can find an income which allows them to not work, they will take advantage of it. Secondly, we’ve got a government system which simply must have a large and ever-growing number of dependent people…can’t build up a bureaucratic empire if there’s no one to minister to. So, the people who run the system have a vested interest in getting lots of people in the program…especially if they are relatively young and look to be justifications for long-term government employment (older people, on the other hand, find all sorts of road blocks…helping them eats up budget while not creating someone who will be a justification for a large number of years…and, so, you find all sorts of VA benefit applicants hanging around waiting for benefits…with the system just waiting them out, figuring they’ll die before payment is necessary).

But this cannot be sustained – we cannot have millions of citizens being non-productive and living off the productive. If you can work, at all, you must work..even if you have a bit of pain in the joints and are worried and/or unhappy in your personal life. If you’re claiming a mental problem is preventing you from working then I’d better see you catatonic under psychological medication…if you say you physically can’t work, I’d better see a missing or completely non-functional arm, leg, eye or some such (and even that is not necessarily final…I knew a lady who was a wheel-chair bound, suffering a quite horrific birth defect which made her legs and hands nearly useless and yet she held down a 40 hour a week job; she passed away from the effects of her disease, but only stopped working a couple months before she died). Naturally, if I’m demanding that you must work, I’d better ensure there is some work to do.

In that department, the ultimate cure is to enact policies which encourage wealth creation – once again, encourage us to make, mine and grow more of our own stuff. But, meanwhile, in order to ensure that those on disability are really disabled, all such persons should be examined to see if there is any work they can do, and if they are determined fit, they should be put to work on whatever we can find. To prevent future abuses, all claims for disability should be reviewed by a citizens jury – empaneled just like a regular jury, and they hear the case and decide whether a person is really disabled and worthy of benefits. So, a person comes in (doctors can attend) and they argue their case…we don’t need to hear a challenge to it; a group of 12 people should be able to figure out if someone is gold bricking.

We simply must get a handle on this. The United States cannot be a gigantic welfare agency. We’re bankrupting ourselves and ruining our nation and its time we called a halt.

From Investors Business Daily:

…His “What, me worry?” presidency has given both Americans and our allies plenty to worry about. But in the process of making nice with Brazil, Obama made a mind-boggling announcement that should make even his most loyal supporter cringe:

We will help Brazil develop its offshore oil so we can one day import it…

…”We want to help you with the technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely. And when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers.”…

First off, I didn’t quite believe that President Obama said that – surely, Investors Business Daily must have got it wrong…but, there are several other sources carrying the quote, including AFP over at Asia One. President Barack Hussein Obama of the United States of America has pledged to help Brazilians gain massive jobs and wealth exploiting oil resources so that increasingly impoverished Americans can buy it…is there any end to the sheer stupidity of this man?

This is just staggering! For goodness sake, we’re economically dying here and our President is off to help foreigners get richer off of us!

More and more, we simply cannot afford this utterly incompetent man to remain at the head of our affairs – for 2012, it is OMB – Obama Must Go!

From Digital Journal:

The Bolivian President and a Russian political leader have launched a campaign to revoke Obama’s honour after the US attacked Libya.

Liberal Democratic Party of Russia leader and Vice-Chairman of the State Duma Vladimir Zhirinovsky released a statement today calling for the Nobel Prize Committee to take back the honour bestowed on US President Barack Obama in 2009…

Obama got the Nobel because the world wanted to insult President Bush – really, that was the whole point of the exercise. But now it is time to insult President Obama…after all, come what may, Obama is President of the United States. This would have happened no matter what course we choose over Libya – action has brought this demand, inaction would have brought the same demand; only the justifications would have changed.

They hate us with a white hot passion because we’re Americans…because we’re free; because we have kept a larger portion of our population morally sane than other nations; because we actually will sacrifice ourselves for the common good. For all our flaws we are still that city on a hill, shining out at the rest of the nations, showing up their flaws. So, now its just Obama’s turn – and I say to those foreigners now jumping all over the President: go jump in a lake. Everyone knows I’ve got problems with Obama, but I’ll still stack him up against the representatives of dying Russia, and against the President of a country whose top anti-drug cop was recently arrested for running drugs. Once they’ve got their respective nations to be even half as good as ours, then they can start to criticize.

But, liberals, do you now start to understand? Do you now, at long last, start to realize that its not what we do, but what we are which causes the enmity? And if we’re going to be hanged no matter what we do, we might as well do what is right by our lights, not by some imagined global feeling about us.

UPDATE: What kind of man is Bolivian President Morales? Well, he’s a past recipient of the Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights. Other winners have been Louis Farrakhan (thus explaining why he’s so upset at Obama), Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega.

Makes one wonder – just how many people have the tyrants bought with money, prizes and sweet heart business deals?

From Rasmussen:

It’s been two months since Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives and they are now trusted more than Democrats on nine out of ten important issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports…

…The latest national telephone survey finds that 47% of Likely Voters trust Republicans more than Democrats to handle the economy, an issue that’s been regarded as the most important by voters for several years now. Thirty-nine percent (39%) trust Democrats more on this issue. These findings have shown little change since early June 2009…

Rasmussen also finds that the GOP continues to have a solid lead in the “generic” ballot – meaning more people are willing to vote Republican at the next election than vote Democrat. All in all, this is a good bit of polling for the GOP and shows the risks that Democrats have as we head in to 2012.

To be sure, we still have to put Obama as being favored to be re-elected. It is always hard to get an incumbent President out of office, and Obama will spend a billion dollars and run the nastiest smear campaign ever seen in political history. For the GOP to beat him, we’ll have to find the right candidate and a spot-on message which resonates with Americans. This can be done – and, in the end, I believe it will be done.

The worst case scenario for the GOP is the re-election of Obama. But even with that, we are likely to increase our House majority (remember, re-districting goes on this year, and we control the lion’s share of that). Additionally, we are almost certain to win a Senate majority (we need four seats to score a 51 seat majority, and at least 8 Democrat seats are extremely vulnerable going in to 2012…and they have a total of 23 to defend). So, even if Obama is re-elected, we’ll be confronting him with a GOP Congress in 2013. But that really won’t be good enough – we have to win it all.

While trust is returning to the GOP, any mis-step can cause a swift erosion of our position. Any retreat on spending cuts, any deal which includes a tax hike, any thing which smacks of Ruling Class business-as-usual will be fatal to our Presidential chances. The American people – and especially the GOP base – want a fight. A fight to reduce government, to free up the economy, to curtail the corrupt special interests – the GOP candidate will have to be someone willing to fight, and will have to be backed up by a party which has not compromised itself. Leaving Obama in office, even with a GOP Congress, will be terrible for the United States. We’ve already seen how lawless he and his Administration are – re-elected and never having to face the voters again, he’ll just get worse…and no matter what he does, if he pulled a Watergate on steroids, his Democrats will never abandon him…unless we get to 67 Senators (impossible), he’s completely immovable except by action of the voters in November of 2012.

And, so, all our efforts have to be done with that in mind – how will it help us get Obama out in 2012. One can say this is a cry for partisanship, but the brute fact is that patriotism requires the defeat of Obama in 2012. He’s just that lousy a President who’s doing that terrible a job.

From Radio Netherlands Worldwide:

Evangelical churches and homes have been burnt down by mobs of Muslims in the southwestern Jimma region of Ethiopia. The attacks have left at least one person dead and 7,000 displaced. “This is a strategically planned attack by an extremist Islamic group.”

“It is a miracle that we are standing here talking,” says Wolde Giorgis, a primary school teacher and devout Christian, standing in front of the burnt remainders of what used to be the largest Pentecostal church of Asendabo, a town in the southwest of Ethiopia that is predominantly Muslim.

Wolde says to fear for his life. “I will leave this place as soon as possible, like so many Christians already did. I don’t know what will be next: first they burn our churches and houses. Are they going to kill us now?”…

To the credit of Islam, one local Imam has condemned the violence – but what can one man do? The genesis of the attacks was an accusation that Christians were flushing the Koran down the toilet – a highly unlikely thing for any Christian to do, but just the sort of thing for the ignorant to believe, and act upon.

What is happening in the world of Islam is that the radicals are taking control – using the local Christians as scape goats (they’d go after the Jews, but the Moslems exiled their Jewish communities in 1948 and thereafter…while the world concentrates its lamentations on the plight of the uprooted Palestinians, no thought is ever given to the Jews who were forced out of places they had lived for centuries…doesn’t fit the “Moslem as victim” narrative), various Islamist groups are gaining control over bands of ignorant youths…with their loyalty to the cause cemented by group criminal activity. This is a very common tactic – and it has been used with success by groups as various as fascists, communists….and street gangs.

More and more it is clear to me that only a separation between Christians and Moslems will allow my brothers and sisters in Christ to live in peace. I don’t like it, I’d prefer just about any alternative – but no Christian can live in safety under Moslem rule right now. At the very least, all Christian communities in the Moslem world should be provided with enclaves of Christian rule…and this might have to lead to outright independent States for Christians to live in. Perhaps in later years, after the savagery of Islam has burned itself out, there can be peace and brotherhood…but for now, it just doesn’t seem possible.

From Bloomberg:

The Federal Reserve will disclose details of emergency loans it made to banks in 2008, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an industry appeal that aimed to shield the records from public view.

The justices today left intact a court order that gives the Fed five days to release the records, sought by Bloomberg News’s parent company, Bloomberg LP. The Clearing House Association LLC, a group of the nation’s largest commercial banks, had asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

“The board will fully comply with the court’s decision and is preparing to make the information available,” said David Skidmore, a spokesman for the Fed…

About time we started to bring the Federal Reserve under control – the pity of it is that they still managed to delay releasing this information. The Fed’s claims that confidentiality were necessary were absurd from the get-go – it is the people’s money that the Federal Reserve was passing around and the people have a right to know where every cent of it wound up. The Federal Reserve does not have the right to keep anything secret from the American people.

In the end, of course, it is better if we just abolish the Federal Reserve. It has been the incubus of our economy since it’s creation in 1913 and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the Fed’s upcoming centennial than by getting rid of it.

HAT TIP: Mish’s