All that transparency Obama promised, huh?

After an unusual day-long negotiating session, President Barack Obama and top Democratic congressional leaders said late Wednesday that they were making “significant progress” towards reconciling the House and Senate health care reform bills.

Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a statement at the close of more than eight hours of White House talks – by far the most significant, high-level negotiations undertaken during the yearlong push for health care reform.

“Today we made significant progress in bridging the remaining gaps between the two health insurance reform bills,” according to the statement. “We’re encouraged and energized, and we’re resolved to deliver reform legislation that provides more stability and security for those with insurance, extends coverage to those who don’t have coverage, and lowers costs for families, businesses, and governments.”

All of which is utter BS – if they were really doing the people’s business, they’d happily have the cameras in the room. The fact that they are hiding it from us means with 100% certainty that they are conspiring against the American people.

Corrupt and incompetent – that is all the Democrats are.

From the US Chamber of Commerce:

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue warned the U.S. faces a double-dip recession because of the taxes and regulations under consideration by the Democratic Congress and President Barack Obama.

“Congress, the administration and states must recognize that our weak economy simply could not sustain all the new taxes, regulations and mandates now under consideration. It’s a sure-fire recipe for a double-dip recession, or worse,” Donohue said in a speech providing the Chamber’s outlook for 2010.

It is my contention, of course, that we haven’t really emerged from the recession. GDP numbers don’t impress me – its all smoke and mirrors fueled by fiat money and accounting which makes Enron look honest. Be that as it may, the facts are ever more clear – Obama’s policies not only aren’t helping,they are making things worse.

The big hits to come this year – ARM mortgages, commercial real estate collapse, likely stock market bubble burst, etc – will be capped off by the fact that the Bush Administration tax cuts will expire at the end of the year. Unless Obama and the Democrats decide to renew the cuts, we’re in for a massive tax increase on what is, at best, an economy in weak recovery. Even the most dyed-in-the-wool Keynsians will tell you this is bad policy – but Democrats are unlikely to move on it because they love the idea of a tax hike they don’t have to actually vote on (though we GOPers simply must find a way to hang this on them – there’s no excuse for inaction).

We need policies which will encourage wealth creation. What that means is not just tax cuts, but regulatory reform to make it easier for people to start or expand farms, factories and mines. We can’t build our economy on windmills, road maintenance and government bureaucrats. We need to actually make money – and that means making, mining and growing things.

Here’s just one idea to get things rolling – in Detroit, there are vast swaths of city land unused. Using eminent domain, the federal government should seize the land (thus taking it out of Detroit’s impossible tax and regulatory environment) and offer it, as it were, under a form of “Homestead Act” to anyone who will start a business on the land – and tax free for the first ten years. This would cost only a trivial amount (the land to be seized in Detroit is largely abandoned and those parts which have an identifiable owner would be compensated at, let’s face it, fire sale prices); it would not require the destruction of any farm or wild lands; it would encourage business formation and expansion right here in the United States (perhaps even with foreign money coming in to open up business which will be non-union and temporarily tax free, ya dig?) and it would provide jobs in one of the worst hit areas of the United States. And it would create wealth where none exists today – and thus, in the long run, provide far more tax revenue than the land is currently generating.

Is this idea the cure-all for what ails us? By no means – its just something I thought of. The point is that we have to think anew and act anew. The tired, old statist policies of liberalism won’t work. And we need leaders who are willing to try any idea provided the cost is little or nothing and the driving force would be the creative effort of regular folks. Do this, and we can get out of our economic mess – do otherwise, and we’ll be sitting here 10 and 20 years from now in the same condition.

E mailed over to NRO’s The Corner:

Let’s break this down: Brown raises $1.3 million in a day. Average donation $77.00

Coakley goes to a fundraiser with her “bundlers” raising at least $10,000 per person, and the party is full of registered lobbyists.

And who’s selling out to proverbial devils?

Its just a pity our rank-and-file liberals refuse to believe they’ve been had. As long as you say the right words, our liberals will remain slavishly devoted…

We’re having a rather lively discussion of this over at Nevada News and Views – as it does affect everyone, you might want to have a look and put your two cents in.

It’s a close race is Massachusetts… Lot’s of things are happening…

VIDEO: Just posted on YouTube is video of a Martha Coakley staffer shoving a reporter for the Weekly Standard to the ground.

Geesh:

The Obama administration has taken some heat and mockery for using the nebulous and non-economic term of jobs being “saved or created” by the $787 billion stimulus program.

So it’s gotten rid of it.

In a little-noticed December 18, 2009 memo from Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag the Obama administration is changing the way stimulus jobs are counted.

The memo, first noted by ProPublica, says that those receiving stimulus funds no longer have to say whether a job has been saved or created.

“Instead, recipients will more easily and objectively report on jobs funded with Recovery Act dollars,” Orszag wrote.

In other words, if the project is being funded with stimulus dollars – even if the person worked at that company or organization before and will work the same place afterwards – that’s a stimulus job.

We pointed out back on December 21st, 2008 that “saved or created” was just a BS way for Obama to claim whatever he wanted on the jobs front. But now that has worn off – it didn’t help that jobs were “saved or created” in non-existent Congressional districts, ya know? This, then, forced Obama and Co to choose – start telling the truth, or come up with a new lie.

It was inevitable that a new lie would be chosen – telling the truth is simply not the default position of Democrats. Geared towards lying about themselves ever since the elder Bush crushed Dukakis pretty much simply because Dukakis was identified as a liberal, Democrats have raised the art of the Big Lie to proportions never seen before. What they haven’t learned is that while the Big Lie can work for a while, it can’t work forever – and people have had just about enough of it, thanks very much.

November can’t get here fast enough…

UPDATE: All those “shovel ready” projects? Spending on them didn’t help in the least.

Meaning they know darn well it will cost like the dickens and do a lousy job:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 17% believe passage of the legislation will achieve the stated goal of reducing health care costs. Fifty-seven percent (57%) think it will lead to higher costs.

Fifty-two percent (52%) also believe passage of the legislation will lead to a decline in the quality of care.

What I wonder: how purblind of a Obamaton do you have to be to think that it will actually lower costs? I mean, we’re talking some really gullible people – people whom you could convince to loan you money for an “investment” you want to make at Ceasar’s Palace. I’d like to meet some of these people on the theory that a fool and his money are soon parted…

Ok, so I boiled it down – but had he said that, he could have got the interview done faster:

VideoJug asked Southers where the US should prioritize the war on terror, and he offered a few more thoughts than just about alliances:

“Due to connectivity that we have with countries such as Israel, France — countries that are seen by groups, by al Qaeda, as infidels or anti-Islamic — by the true nature of our alliance with them means that we subject to be attacked as well. I do think, however, it deserves to perhaps have some parity with global warming, with education, with the economy, but national security is always going to supercede everything else. I don’t think you can have all of those other entities flourish in a state where the security is not felt to be confident, comfortable, and intact.”

Memo: fake environmentalist causes are not to have parity with people who would murder millions, if they could.

The other day, Mark Steyn asserted that the election of Obama was the most unserious act the American people have ever taken. He’s right. We’ve got utter fools governing us – and we’ve no one to blame for this but ourselves.

UPDATE: And he considers anti-abortion views to be part of domestic terrorism.

The debate was live-tweeted by Hub Politics. It was a great debate to watch… Now we have to help Scott Brown take the momentum from tonight and reach the new goal of raising $1 million today…

Help out Scott Brown by donating now!

No, its not President Obama. Yet.

…Harried by recession and sliding popularity, Mr. Chávez on Friday weakened the bolivar to 4.3 per dollar from 2.15 in a bid to shore up government finances, which have been hit by weaker oil prices, and to stimulate economic growth ahead of key elections….

Yet another socialist. Yet another hero to the American left. Yet another corrupt, crooked tyrant. Its a story which has been told far too many times. You’d think, after a while, our domestic leftists would figure it out, but they never do. While Chavez has put in some cosmetic protections for the poor, the plain fact of the matter is that he’s just stolen half the wealth of Venezuela’s poor – the people he, and other socialists, always claim to be for. And, as with all other socialist regimes, it is the poor who fare worst.

The trouble for us is that the Federal Reserve has been printing money like mad and using it to buy bonds and worthless assets from banks. Each dollar the Fed creates out of thin air is essentially a dollar stolen from the people – because each dollar in hand (and representing actual work to earn it) now becomes worth that much less. Will this kick in to massive inflation? So far, no – but only because the world is in such a deep economic down spin that the inflationary effects have been muted. But our money has been stolen, and eventually it’ll have to balance out somewhere.

For nearly a century now we’ve tried to funny-money and usury our way to riches. Well, it hasn’t worked. All its done is pile up a mountain of debt, benefited financial sharks (like the left’s other hero, George Soros) and screwed the average person out of their wealth. Its time to bring an end to this – before Obama takes a cue from Chavez, and picks our pockets.