Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Obama Budget More Pie in the Sky Than Chicken in Every Pot

by Janet Crain

There is entirely too much speculating and extrapolating and counting chickens before they hatch to make this budget work. And now Obama's chickens are coming home to roost as his Democratic Barons are expressing these cold hard facts. You can discuss these lofty ideas in academia until the cows come home, but whether they will work in the real world is the question. You simply cannot buy, buy, spend, spend now based on money you expect and hope will materialize in the future. Of course many did. That is what got us in this mess.

Obama’s Budget Faces Test Among Party Barons

By JACKIE CALMES and CARL HULSE

Published: March 9, 2009

WASHINGTON — What the Democratic barons of Congress liked best about President Obama’s audacious budget was his invitation to fill in the details. They have started by erasing some of his.

The apparent first casualty is a big one: a proposal to limit tax deductions for the wealthiest 1.2 percent of taxpayers. Mr. Obama says the plan would produce $318 billion over the next decade as a down payment for overhauling health care.

But the chairmen of the House and Senate tax-writing committees, Senator Max Baucus of Montana and Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, have objected to the proposal, citing a potential drop in tax-deductible gifts to charities.

Billions in savings from cutting government subsidies to big farmers and agribusinesses? No dice, said Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, who heads the Senate Budget Committee.

Mr. Conrad also panned the limit on tax deductions. And his criticisms of those savings proposals aside, Mr. Conrad said Mr. Obama’s 10-year plan would not do enough to reduce future debt.

Shrink spending on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? Representative John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, chairman of the House Budget Committee, suggested Mr. Obama’s proposals did not go far enough.

Cap industries’ emissions of the gases blamed for climate change? Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, who leads the House Energy and Commerce Committee, will have to contend with dissent on a panel with Democrats from coal and manufacturing states.

“The legislative process requires compromise and being open to different alternatives,” Mr. Waxman said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/us/politics/10chairmen.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

Monday, March 9, 2009

Texas Cities Setting for Drug Cartel Wars

by Janet Crain
The comments in the Houston Chronicle by some people who want to solve this horrible problem by legalizing drugs are really stupid, IMO. To those who feel we should just let all the illegals in and legalize drugs to solve this problem I would say:

Give me a break! In the first place it would not work. You would still have competing gangs killing each other. And we should not cave to bullies and terrorists because they will get worse. People want to rob banks and sometimes they do. What's the answer? Throw the doors open and hand out money? NO!!! Shut the borders and enforce the drug laws and illegal alien laws. Not enough personel? Hire some more with all that money pouring out of Washington. And/or use the National Guard.

Don't just give up!!!

What about the demand for hard dangerous drugs? Gonna legalize those too? Anybody can cook up Meth. It ruins lives. Turns parents into zombies.

We do not need a nation on drugs.

Get a grip. Sober up if necessary.

Help don't hinder.

Mexican cartels infiltrate Houston

Recent arrests in a mistaken killing point to the perilous presence of gangs

By DANE SCHILLER
Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle

March 7, 2009, 9:28PM

Family photo

Jose Perez was enjoying a night out with his wife, Norma, in 2006 when hitmen with a Mexican drug cartel mistook him for a rival trafficker and gunned him down.

But in a case of mistaken identity, Jose Perez ended up dead. The intended target — the Houston-based head of a Mexican drug cartel cell pumping millions of dollars of cocaine into the city — walked away.

Perez, 27, was just a working guy, out getting dinner late on a Friday with his wife and young children at Chilos, a seafood restaurant on the Gulf Freeway.

His murder and the assassination gone awry point to the perilous presence of Mexican organized crime and how cartel violence has seeped into the city.

Arrests came in December when police and federal agents got a break in the 2006 shooting as they charted the relationship and rivalries between at least five cartel cells operating in Houston. A rogue’s gallery of about 100 names and mug shots taken at Texas jails and morgues offers a blueprint for Mexican organized crime.

Houston has long been a major staging ground for importing illegal drugs from Mexico and shipping them to the rest of the United States, but a recent Department of Justice report notes it is one of 230 cities where cartels maintain distribution networks and supply lines.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6299436.html

Tired or Bored to Death with the Minutiae Associated With Governing?

Nobody promised Obama a Rose Garden, well actually, it comes with the job, but so do a whole lot of other duties. JC

Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with Mr Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president's surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.

A well-connected Washington figure, who is close to members of Mr Obama's inner circle, expressed concern that Mr Obama had failed so far to "even fake an interest in foreign policy".

Well, well, well........

The Sunday Telegraph understands that one of Mr Obama's most prominent African American backers, whose endorsement he spent two years cultivating, has told friends that he detects a weakness in Mr Obama's character.

"The one real serious flaw I see in Barack Obama is that he thinks he can manage all this," the well-known figure told a Washington official, who spoke to this newspaper. "He's underestimating the flood of things that will hit his desk." A Democratic strategist, who is friends with several senior White House aides, revealed that the president has regularly appeared worn out and drawn during evening work sessions with senior staff in the West Wing and has been forced to make decisions more quickly than he is comfortable.

He said that on several occasions the president has had to hurry back from eating dinner with his family in the residence and then tucking his daughters in to bed, to conduct urgent government business. Matters are not helped by the pledge to give up smoking.

"People say he looks tired more often than they're used to," the strategist said. "He's still calm, but there have been flashes of irritation when he thinks he's being pushed to make a decision sooner than he wants to make it. He looks like he needs a cigarette."

Well, then, for Heaven's Sake, give him one. Somebody has to run this country. And somebody sit him down for some home schooling in how important our ally Britain is!!!

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Iditarod Commemorates a Life Saving Mission

Related

The Iditarod: Commemorating the 1925 Emergency Delivery of Diphtheria Serum to Nome, Alaska

The Iditarod is run each year to commemorate the emergency delivery in 1925 of diphtheria antitoxin to Nome, Alaska. Nome in 1925 had changed from a booming, boisterous turn-of-the-century gold-rush camp into a small, quiet town of about 1,500 people. It was fifteen years since the end of the gold-rush, but Nome remained an important settlement on the Seward Peninsula.

Nome, Alaska in 1925
Dr. Curtis Welch
The First Signs of an Epidemic It was a normal mid-January afternoon in Nome. Doctor Curtis Welch, physician and director of the US Public Health Service, was doing paperwork in his office at the Merchants and Miners Bank of Alaska building. An Eskimo man came into the office asking the doctor to come quickly, his two children were very sick. Dr. Welch raced to the Sand Spit Eskimo settlement, west of the Snake River on the fringes of Nome.

The children's temperatures were dangerously high, and their breathing was labored and shallow. Dr. Welch asked the mother how the children had become ill and what their symptoms had been. She replied that they had been sick for about three days. She thought it was a bad cold because their throats had become red and sore. Dr. Welch tried to examine their throats, but they could not open their mouths far enough for him to do so. He tried to comfort the mother and then returned to his office. Dr. Welch had wished many times that he had access to a good laboratory where he could send specimens for analysis. It was very strange. Children don't die of sore throats, but the two Eskimo children were dying. At one point he considered diphtheria but it was highly unlikely. He hadn't seen a case in northern Alaska in twenty years. Despite the doctor's efforts the Eskimo children died the following day.

A few days later, on January 21, Dr. Welch was called to the home of a white family to examine their six-year-old son. The child had been sick for two days with a sore throat. Dr. Welch examined the boy's throat and recognized immediately the dirty white patches of the diphtheria membrane. The doctor realized the terrible implications of this diagnosis. Diphtheria, left un-checked, would spread with devastating speed.

Dr. Welch met at once with Nome's mayor and city council. He told them of the imminent epidemic and stressed that some way must be found to get the diphtheria antitoxin to Nome within 2 weeks. The serum would check the spread of the disease and would help those already infected. His main concern was with the native population that had little or no immunity to white-man's diseases. A flu epidemic in 1919 had wiped out entire Eskimo villages.

300, 000 units of Diphtheria Serum were available but there was no way to get the life saving medicine to Nome in time, unless the sled dogs could do it. The rest is history:

http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/iditarod.html

This story is set in Canada but it so poignantly describes the horrors of an early day Diphtheria epidemic, it should be read by those wanting to understand life before modern medicine was available. It is one of the saddest stories I ever read and also one of the best.

Sarah Palin Female Force Comic Book Huge Hit!!!

FEMALE FORCE: SARAH PALIN SELLS OUT AND GETS SECOND PRINTING

Bluewater Productions is proud to announce that the comic book; FEMALE FORCE: SARAH PALIN has completely sold out and will be going back for a second printing.

“Due to the overwhelming demand for both the Palin and Clinton FEMALE FORCE issues, we are thrilled to have to run an second printing,” said Bluewater Productions publisher Darren G. Davis. “Despite our plan to over-print these titles the demand greatly exceeded our projections.”

These post order numbers occurred prior to the comics street release scheduled for of March 11. The 2nd printing of the comic will feature the same painted cover of Sarah Palin by Patricio Carbajal.

The comic book series has been featured on CNN, Fox News, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today and numerous other media outlets.

The FEMALE FORCE: Sarah Palin title was printed using Bluewater’s new green printing philosophy.

We are getting close to selling out of the Hillary Clinton comic as well. The issue is still available (for retailers) to order through Diamond DCD item #: NOV083848. There is still time to order Female Force: Michelle Obama DCD ITEM # FEB094121.

Purchase at Comic Book Stand.

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/influential-women-sarah-palin-hillary-clinton-michelle-obama-caroline-kenne

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/081020-sarah-palin-comic.html

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Brits Furious over PM Brown's Shabby Treatment

Hat Tip Hot Air

President Barack Obama just plain rude to Britain. Don't call us in future.

Why couldn't President Obama have put on more of a show for his British guests? He looked like he simply couldn't be bothered.

Gordon Brown and Barack Obama in the Oval Office (Photo: AP)

Number 10 may be content that they just about got away with the visit to the Oval Office yesterday, as Andrew Porter reports from Washington.

But on this side of the Atlantic the whole business looked pretty demeaning. The morning papers and TV last night featured plenty of comment focused on the White House's very odd and, frankly, exceptionally rude treatment of a British PM. Squeezing in a meeting, denying him a full press conference with flags etc. The British press corps, left outside for an hour in the cold, can take it and their privations are of limited concern to the public.

But Obama's merely warmish words (one of our closest allies, said with little sincerity or passion) left a bitter taste with this Atlanticist. Especially after his team had made Number 10 beg for a mini press conference and then not even offered the PM lunch.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/iain_martin/blog/2009/03/04/president_barack_obama_just_plain_rude_to_britain_dont_call_us_in_future

I'm embarrassed, how about you?

Comment here:

© Janet Crain

Click here to view all recent Sarah Palin in 2012 posts

Hold Your Tongue Obama.......We Can't Take Much More!!!

Letting Kids Be Kids

by Janet Crain
There used to be a bubble that children lived in where politics did not rear its ~~sometimes~~ often ugly head. Carefree lovely childhood in the finest country in the world. I miss that.

We now live in a country where people buy such ridiculous apparel as onesies for a 6 month old with "Bush Spied" on the front. What 6 month really cares if Bush spied or anyone else? And even less tasteful such as this: http://t-shirts.cafepress.com/item/war-criminals-kids-tshirt/45117421 IMO,it takes a really stupid person to turn their child into a ~~walking~~ crawling billboard for hate politics or an advertisement for the tactics of a 6 six week President.

And any parent who puts this shirt on a 6 year old shouldn't be surprised when they have an anti-government, anti-authority of any kind teenager ten years down the road.

And now they've taken over cartoons, for Heaven's Sake!

Nickelodeon Broadcasts Cartoon Homage to 'Dear Leader' Obama
By P.J. Gladnick (Bio | Archive)
March 5, 2009 - 09:51 ET

Does anyone here recall Nickelodeon presenting a cartoon homage to President George W. Bush? No? Of course not. "Wrong" politics. However, if you think your very young children are safe from being exposed to subtle political brainwashing while watching Nick Jr., which presents Nickelodeon cartoons for children 5 and under, you would be wrong. Check out this poetic cartoon homage to Barack Obama currently running on Nick Jr.. Here is what your young ones will hear:

Nickelodeon celebrates President Barack Obama and some of his favorite things.

Barack Obama is the first African-American to be President. That is what's called a historic event.

Leading a country is no easy task. So what does he do to relax you may ask?
Story Continues Below Ad ↓

He loves shrimp linguini and the chili he cooks. He also plays Scrabble; collects comic books.

He likes classical and hip-hop and jazz music too. He always goes shopping for the same type of shoe.

He reads lots of books and writes wonderful speeches. He goes on vacation and takes walks on beaches.

He loves basketball; it's his favorite sport. In the White House backyard he'll have his own court.

He reads bedtime stories to his daughters at night. The President in pajamas? What a sight!

Now you know the President better than before. Which leaves just one thing, when he sleeps does he snore?

For more about President Barack Obama, go to parents.nickjr.com.

Perhaps your humble correspondent is a wee bit old fashioned but he doesn't recall any politics injected into the Tom & Jerry or Bugs Bunny cartoons he watched while a kid. This isn't the first time Nickelodeon has been involved in subjecting children to liberal politics. In October 2007, Nickelodeon was exposed here in NewsBusters for pushing leftwing propanda. Here was the complaint posted by a mother on her blog:

This Nickelodeon “news program”, is not a news program. It is a leftist primer on how to be a “left-wing radical REBEL”.

I am not a blind follower of our Government, and I also think that Government should be watched by it’s citizens. It is our civic duty.

However this program led by Ellerby, is anti-war, anti- GWOT, anti-military.

This “news program” is not about people changing the World around them.

Ms. Ellerby uses leftist propaganda buzz words like “taking on the establishment”.

She shows a group of “tweenagers” walking around in orange jumpsuits, hooded and yelling from a bullhorn. “We are not ok, with people being tortured by American soldiers!” “Are cooperation’s priority over human lives?”

There is also a call for the impeachment of the President in the second segment of the video, “democracy is at stake because of the President violating the Constitution”.

© Janet Crain

Click here to view all recent Sarah Palin in 2012 posts

Friday, March 6, 2009

Barack Franklin Dwight Obama, I don't Think So!!!

Salon

March 6, 2009

Barack Obama's bold, ambitious budget plan proves that he is the true heir of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Consider Obama's Rooseveltian energy plan. In 1939, President Roosevelt decided to mobilize Americans to create a new source of energy: atomic power. Although he was urged to focus on government-funded R&D, FDR chose a different route. He wisely encouraged private capital to invest in atomic energy research by a variety of tax incentives. To make atomic power investment more palatable to private capital, FDR boldly chose to make all other forms of energy in the U.S. uneconomical, by slapping high taxes on kerosene and coal. With the money from the new federal Kerosene Cap and Trade system, President Roosevelt and Congress funded a small-scale federal research program, in the hope of attracting much greater private investment ...

Wait. What's that you say? FDR didn't do that? He poured federal money into the all-public Manhattan Project and created the first atomic bomb in a couple of years? He didn't tax kerosene to make it uneconomical and to encourage private investment in atomic power?

Oh. OK. Never mind.

But what about Social Security? In 1935, FDR signed the historic Social Security Act. It created a complex "retirement mandate" system, forcing all elderly Americans to buy expensive annuities from private insurance companies, without, however, imposing price controls on the insurance companies ...

What? FDR didn't force the elderly to subsidize private annuity brokers? He imposed a single, simple, efficient tax to pay for a single, simple, efficient public system of retirement benefits?

All right, then, forget FDR. He was a socialist, anyway. Let Dwight Eisenhower serve as a model for the Obama administration. President Eisenhower authorized the biggest infrastructure program in American history, when he signed the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956. The interstate highway act created an elaborate system of private tax incentives and public-private partnerships (PPPs) to encourage private corporations to build national highways. To begin with, all U.S. highways were leased to domestic and foreign corporations for a period of decades. Second, all U.S. highways were set up with toll booths, so that American drivers would be forced to repay the corporate owners of the national highways every few dozen miles. Finally, a system of high-speed lanes with higher tolls was created, so that the rich could whiz down the road while middle-class and poor Americans were stuck in traffic jams ...

All right, what now, wise guy? So that's wrong, too? Eisenhower's national highway system wasn't based on tolls, leases to foreign companies, income-based pricing, and tax credits for private corporations? It used gasoline taxes to fund free public highways?

Free highways without toll booths, owned by the public, paid for out of taxes? My God. So the John Birch Society was right after all. Dwight Eisenhower was as much of a socialist as Franklin Delano Roosevelt!

Full Article Here:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/03/06/neoliberalism/?source=newsletter

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Rahm is the Real Face of Chicago Politics Barack Hides So well

by Janet Crain

Ever since I read the description by Congressman Dent of Barack Obama cynically feeding the Republican Reps and their families warm oatmeal cookies as he sought to woo their votes on the Stimulus Bill, I have understood his seething anger a few days later when no one fell for it. He hides this side of himself well. You have to look for his petty resentments. But not so his other self Rahm Emanuel. Rahm can do anything and be forgiven, cheered, even admired. BO must envy Rahm at times. His twists arms Chicago style. He can even be nice to old white people he despises.

An admirer writes:

It was sort of funny to watch Emanuel in that first campaign. He was on his very best behavior. No brashness, arrogance, tempestuousness, or impatience -- he was actually charming, almost nice. You'd see him hanging out under the el stops in the morning, politely shaking the hands of commuters rushing to catch the train for work. I once watched him make the rounds of a senior citizens' center in a white ethnic neighborhood on the city's far northwest side. He feigned interest in their bingo games and laughed at their jokes. He only looked at his watch once or twice before bolting for his next stop.

Frankly, I don't know why he even bothered to be so sweet. With Daley's backing, Attila the Hun could have won that election. The mayor brought out the pay rollers to make sure that Emanuel steamrolled his opposition. I happen to live in the district and I remember the fellows on the sidewalks outside the polling places on Election Day. Beefy boys with thick necks and fat bellies, they passed out palm cards that pretty much said, "Vote for Emanuel -- or else!"

So thanks to Mayor Daley, Emanuel got to go to Congress, where he railed against Republican corruption and scandals, conveniently overlooking all the corruption and scandal in his hometown.

So why is Obama hiring Emanuel as chief of staff? Probably for the same reason Daley hired him way back in 1989. He's ruthless, cunning, and absolutely unafraid to be a jerk. In fact, I think Emanuel enjoys being a jerk. Moreover, by being a jerk, I predict Emanuel will do a great service for Obama. By the time Emanuel is finished irritating, humiliating, and infuriating folks in Washington, Obama will look like an angel. People will probably like him even more just because he's not Emanuel.

In the last few days, Emanuel's been telling friends in Chicago that he had to think long and hard over leaving Congress. But I doubt it was that tough of a decision.

It couldn't have been easy for Emanuel to be a congressman, particularly at election time when he had to be nice to everyone like those old folks in the bingo parlor.

Now he gets to go back to being nasty. I suspect it will be like a dream come true.

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=does_rahm_emanuels_pick_mean_the_chicago_machine_is_coming_to_washington