How Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s awful Republican rebuttal to President Obama’s speech before Congress represents a wrongheaded and ill-fated GOP strategy of minority and gender identity politics.
Category: Washington DC
Swiss are not happy about US probe of UBS
Now this is interesting:
The right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) called on Saturday for retaliation against the United States over a U.S. tax probe into the country’s biggest bank UBS that threatens prized banking secrecy.
The populist SVP, the country’s biggest party, said Switzerland should not take in any detainees from the U.S. prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, which the Swiss government said last month it could consider to help shut the camp down.
Switzerland should also reconsider its policy of representing the United States in countries where it has no diplomatic presence, the parliamentary SVP said in a statement.
The SVP said gold stored by the Swiss National Bank in the United States should be repatriated and Switzerland should ban the sale of U.S. funds in the country to protect Swiss investors after the failure of U.S. regulators.
The SVP has one minister in the seven-member Swiss government which is made up of the biggest four parties, but its populist policies have shaken up usually consensual Swiss politics.
via Swiss party wants to punish U.S. for UBS probe – Reuters.
You see, this is what happens, when the United States entangles itself in the affairs of other Governments. Switzerland has been a neutral country for years and a somewhat friend of ours, now they’ve become a enemy. Real smart there Barry, Real fucking smart.
Obama to Unveil Class Warfare Plan
I knew this was coming:
President Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on business and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said.
In addition to tackling a deficit swollen by the $787 billion stimulus package and other efforts to ease the nation’s economic crisis, the budget blueprint will press aggressively for progress on the domestic agenda Obama outlined during the presidential campaign. This would include key changes to environmental policies and a major expansion of health coverage that Obama hopes to enact later this year.
A summary of Obama’s budget request for the fiscal year that begins in October will be delivered to Congress on Thursday, with the complete, multi-hundred-page document to follow in April. But Obama plans to unveil his goals for scaling back record deficits and rebuilding the nation’s costly and inefficient health care system Monday, when he addresses more than 100 lawmakers and budget experts at a White House summit on restoring “fiscal responsibility” to Washington.
In his weekly radio and Internet address today, Obama expressed determination to “get exploding deficits under control” and described his budget request as “sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don’t, and restoring fiscal discipline.”
Reducing the deficit, he said, is critical to the nation’s future: “We can’t generate sustained growth without getting our deficits under control.”
Obama faces the long-term challenge of retirement and health programs that threaten to bankrupt the government years down the road, as well as the more immediate problem of deficits bloated by spending on the economy and financial-system bailouts. His budget proposal takes aim at the short-term problem, administration officials said, but also would begin to address the nation’s chronic budget imbalance by squeezing savings from the federal health programs for the elderly and the poor.
Even before Congress approved the stimulus package earlier this month, this year’s deficit was projected by Congressional budget analysts to approach $1.2 trillion, or 8.3 percent of the overall economy, the highest since World War II. With the stimulus and other expenses, some analysts say the annual gap between federal spending and income could approach $2 trillion when the fiscal year ends in September.
Obama proposes to dramatically reduce those numbers by the end of his first term, cutting the deficit he inherited in half, said administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the budget has yet to be released. His budget plan would keep the deficit hovering near $1 trillion in 2010 and 2011, but shows it dropping to $533 billion in 2013 — still high in dollar terms, but a more manageable 3 percent of the overall economy.
To get there, Obama proposes to cut spending and raise taxes. The savings would come primarily from “winding down the war” in Iraq, a senior administration official said. The budget assumes that the nation will continue to spend money on “overseas military contingency operations” throughout Obama’s presidency, the official said, but that number is significantly lower than the nearly $190 billion the nation budgeted for Iraq and Afghanistan last year
via Washington Post – Obama to Unveil an Ambitious Budget Plan.
Well, one can forget about any new jobs coming to Michigan or anywhere else in America, because if Businesses are taxed, they will not hire new people. Just more class warfare from the Democrats. I also notice that Obama is cutting funds to Iraq and Afghanistan, that will be the precursor to ending the war. Because you cannot fight a war, if you do not have the funds.
We are headed into a repeat of the 1990’s all over again, ending the deficit on the backs of the wealthy in the Country, while the rest of Country gets off scott free. Where is the fairness in that? The reason why this is so bad is this, if you tax the wealthy and business owners, they are much less likely to hire new employees and also they are less likely to spend money, thereby adding to the economy. This whole idea of the Democrats of Tax and Spending our way out of our Economic woes is just plain idiotic.
We are headed towards very scary times in America. Act accordingly.
(H/T and Thanks to Drudge)
Awesome Karl Denninger lays the smack down on White Press Secretary Gibbs
Nothing ever changes in Washington D.C.
Heh.
The Obama administration, siding with former President George W. Bush, is trying to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails.
Two advocacy groups suing the Executive Office of the President say that large amounts of White House e-mail documenting Bush’s eight years in office may still be missing, and that the government must undertake an extensive recovery effort. They expressed disappointment that Obama’s Justice Department is continuing the Bush administration’s bid to get the lawsuits dismissed.
During its first term, the Bush White House failed to install electronic record-keeping for e-mail when it switched to a new system, resulting in millions of messages that could not be found.
The Bush White House discovered the problem in 2005 and rejected a proposed solution.
Hey far lefty liberals! How’s that Hope and Change working out for ya eh? 😆 🙄
Too funny for words. What the Liberals get for putting all thier Faith and trust into a magic moonbat.
Others: Newshoggers.com, Flopping Aces
So much for Hope and Change
So much for that idea!
In his first weeks in office, President Barack Obama shut down his predecessor’s system for reviewing regulations, realigned and expanded two key White House policy making bodies and extended economic sanctions against parties to the conflict in the African nation of Cote D’Ivoire.
Despite the intense scrutiny a president gets just after the inauguration, Obama managed to take all these actions with nary a mention from the White House press corps.
The moves escaped notice because they were never announced by the White House Press Office and were never placed on the White House web site.
They came to light only because the official paperwork was transmitted to the Federal Register, a dense daily compendium of regulatory actions and other formal notices prepared by the National Archives. They were published there several days after the fact.
A Politico review of Federal Register issuances since Obama took office found three executive orders, one presidential memorandum, one presidential notice, and one proclamation that went unannounced by the White House.
via The White House’s missing documents – Josh Gerstein – Politico.com.
Normally, I would not give two flips about something like this, But Mr. B. Hussein Obama promise change and total transparency. What we have gotten is the the some old Washington politics. Nothing changed, just skin of the President is a bit darker and the political party is very different.
Others: protein wisdom, Townhall.com, Hot Air, NewsBusters.org, Outside The Beltway
Video: Excuse Me, Mr. President
Looks like not all Liberals are enthralled with the New Liberal President….
This comes via After Downing Street:
To be clear, I don’t agree with him on Afghanistan. But on the Iraq War, I do, 100 percent. As for the Bush Administration, as much as I hate to say it; Obama will not do what this man and the far left wants, he just cannot risk the political capital on a crimes tribunal.
But it does give voice to those who are of this mindset. Furthermore, if this is the growing consensus amongst the far left and also amongst independents, who did elect him, Obama will be a one term President. Of course, if this Economic Stimulus fails, Obama will be a one term President. Because the American people are not too happy about all this money being spent. Also, Congress will pay as well. Michelle Malkin is right , the Democrats always overreach and when they do, disaster happens. Then the tide turns and the other party gets in and the same cycle repeats. Been this way since the two party system started and will be this way, until a Switzerland style of Government is implemented here. Which will never happen, too many money bags controlling the strings.
(H/T Freedom’s Phoenix)
Video: The Obama Fraud
An Excellent Video…..
(Via Freedom’s Phoenix)
Congression Budget Office says the Economic Slump will end mid-2009
This is quite interesting:
The non-partisan Congression Budget Office reports the current economic slump will end sometime around mid-2009.
Keep in mind Obama himself admits any effect he thinks his government expansion will have on the economy won’t take place until 2010 — well after the slump will end anyway.
Between that, and the CBO’s research last week showing Obama plan will cause long-term damage to the economy, and that the economy will bounce back faster without the package, why is the Senate even considering a $1,100,000,000,000.00 Frankenstein’s moster of wealth transfers and fatter government?
It probably has much to do with the fact much of the money lines the pockets of groups that deliver votes to Democrats, and much of that borrowed taxpayer money could even end up in Democrat campaign accounts by way of funneling through labor unions, ACORN and such.
The only thing the package appears to be stimulating are government growth and Democrat vote-delivering mechanisms.
via CBO: Economic slump will end mid-2009 | Libertarian Party.
You can read this for yourself here. (It’s a PDF file, requires Adobe Reader)
So, basically all this money is being wasted for no reason. So typical for Washington D.C.
(Via IPR)
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has pancreatic cancer
This is truly sad. 🙁
Via the AP:
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had surgery Thursday after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the court said.
Ginsburg, 75, had the surgery at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. She will remain in the hospital for seven to 10 days, said her surgeon, Dr. Murray Brennan, according to a release issued by the court.
The court announcement said the cancer is apparently in the early stages.
In 1999, Ginsburg had surgery for colon cancer and had chemotherapy and radiation treatment. The only woman on the court, she has been a justice since 1993.
The pancreatic cancer was discovered during a routine, annual exam late last month at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.
A CAT scan revealed a tumor measuring about 1 centimeter across the center of the pancreas, the court said.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly cancers: Nearly 38,000 cases a year are diagnosed and overall, fewer than 5 percent survive five years.
You know, politics in one thing, but real life is another. My best wishes and prayers are with the Ginsburg family and with Justice Ginsberg as well.
In the spirit of keeping things civil on this sad subject, I am shutting off comments on this posting. I just don’t need the problems with some idiot leaving an asshat comment.
God Bless the Lady. 🙁