Recently, some analysts have suggested that the lack of major policy breakthroughs in the last year is due to the fact that America has become ungovernable. Ezra Klein argued that it was time to reform the filibuster because the government cannot function with it intact anymore. Tom Friedman suggested that America’s “political instability” was making people abroad nervous. And Michael Cohen of Newsweek blamed “obstructionist Republicans,” “spineless Democrats,” and an “incoherent public” for the problem.

Nonsense. America is not ungovernable. Her President has simply not been up to the job.

Cost goes on to lay out, in some pretty good detail why he claims Obama hasn’t been up to the job. And I think he does a pretty thorough job. Be sure to read it all.

He also mentions something in there that I think is lost on the left and sometimes the right. While for many of us, we’ve seen government grow well beyond what we find acceptable or prudent, we actually could be worse off. And one of the reasons we’re not is the inherent design of the system of government we have. The same design many on the left now find frustrating and obstructive.

Let’s acknowledge that governing the United States of America is an extremely difficult task. Intentionally so. When designing our system, the Founders were faced with a dilemma. How to empower a vigorous government without endangering liberty or true republicanism? On the one hand, George III’s government was effective at satisfying the will of the sovereign, but that will had become tyrannical. On the other hand, the Articles of Confederation acknowledged the rights of the states, but so much so that the federal government was incapable of solving basic problems.

The solution the country ultimately settled on had five important features: checks and balances so that the branches would police one another; a large republic so that majority sentiment was fleeting and not intensely felt; a Senate where the states would be equal; enumerated congressional powers to limit the scope of governmental authority; and the Bill of Rights to offer extra protection against the government.

The end result was a government that is powerful, but not infinitely so. Additionally, it is schizophrenic. It can do great things when it is of a single mind – but quite often it is not of one mind. So, to govern, our leaders need to build a broad consensus. When there is no such consensus, the most likely outcome is that the government will do nothing.

The President’s two major initiatives – cap-and-trade and health care – have failed because there was not a broad consensus to enact them. Our system is heavily biased against such proposals. That’s a good thing.

So, as Cost points out, governing America is hard. But that’s a feature not a bug. It is intentionally hard because within that system is a means for the minority to be heard. That’s a critical feature. Because of that feature, the majority isn’t able to ram through legislation that isn’t acceptable to a broad base of the voting constituency. Health care reform and cap-and-trade represent legislation that has been found wanting in that regard. So the left, who used it like a Stradivarius when they were in the minority, now want that check eliminated in the Senate (kill the filibuster) and pine for the good old days of elite rule when, they claim, ramming through major legislation was so much easier.

No real surprise there.

Which brings me to Richard Fernandez’s take on this subject. He agrees with 99% of what Cost says, but says there is 1% where he’d differ:

The Left doesn’t want to govern, it wants to rule given the chance. It is as always willing to leave its own Big Tent behind at the decisive moment. The continual calls from the Democrat Left for Obama to ‘grow a spine’ are really coded calls to say that the moment is now; that the President must ‘’seize the day, seize the hour”. It’s not as Cost imagines, a call to compromise. It’s a call to say that the time for compromise is over. They can drop the mask; they can hoist the Jolly Roger.

I think Fernandez is right. Remember “I won” soon after Obama’s assumption of power? That bit of gloating was a moment the mask dropped.

The left would much rather rule than govern. It is certainly easier. And it tends to agree more with their authoritarian bent.

Governing is a messy and hard business in which they must listen and react to constituents. It means they actually are servants to the public. On the other hand, ruling means the elite choose what the constituency should live with since it is believed by them that the elite know best what that should be. Those they represent exist only to justify the presence of their rulers. The only difference between our left wing and that which founded the USSR is ours haven’t ever had the chance to effect the change those in Soviet Russia did. To this point, our system has mostly prevented it. But redistribution of income, more government intrusiveness and more government control are certainly the obvious desired results of most of the left’s agenda.

And, much to the frustration of the left, the system is preventing it again (with the stipulation that the GOP doesn’t find a way to cave and pass the unpopular bills cited above).

I’m not sure what Barack Obama thought he’d be able to do in terms of “ruling” instead of “governing”, but I’m sure that those who supported his “hope and change” agenda weren’t looking for a ruler. However it is clear, per Cost’s article, they’ve not gotten someone who can govern either (back to the leadership problem again). And, somewhat surprisingly, Obama doesn’t seem to understand the situation he’s put himself in as he doubles down on the leftist agenda he’s allowed liberal Congressional Democrats to craft. He, like so many deluded politicians, is convinced the problem with lack of popular support for the agenda is to be found with the message’s delivery, not with the message itself.

Cost concludes with an answer that I think fairly well destroys the “ungovernable” canard:

This remains a divided country, which creates complications in a system such as ours. The President should have recognized this, and governed with a view to building a broad coalition. But he has not.

America is not ungovernable. Barack Obama has so far failed to govern it.

Here’s to further frustration to the left and their agenda by the “ungovernable” among us.

~McQ

Watch the trees bow, the teddy bear disappear and a “white flame” grow on the tiki torches.

~McQ

Yves Smith looks at the problem of how to handle the prospect of the financially weaker members of the European Union possibly defaulting. neither the PIIGS nor their colleague states want to take the steps they may need to take. Markets however are sending a clear message, “Do Something!” The risk goes beyond the direct damage from the potential losses from holding these countries debts. European banks are already shaky, with shaky assets and still a lot more leverage than is safe. I believe Europe’s bear market is likely back on.

European banks are shaky? How provincial of me not to mention our own banks. The coming wave of defaults in the Alt-A and Prime mortgage space are not getting enough attention, Yves helps out there as well. Not only are the losses coming (pretending loans are good only works until they actually default) but the banks are in for some serious lawsuits from all kinds of parties that bought the toxic loans. First in line are Freddie and Fannie. They will still lose at least 400 billion, but they’ll take a good chunk out of the banks hide on the way down.

the phrase “credit specialists at Citi” is not exactly the kind of thing which instills enormous confidence in analysts and investors these days

I think that is an understatement. They want to sell another fancy derivative designed to remove all risk if there is a systemic crisis when, of course, those supposed to pay up will certainly have the money to do so….Right?

Please imagine me banging my head against the keyboard. And no, the response of the Citi Spokesman doesn’t make me feel any different, in fact, it makes me feel worse.

The term liquidity is the pixie dust the financial commentariat uses to obscure what is really going on. I maintain, and have throughout the last few years, that our difficulties have not been a liquidity crisis (though many who had no business exposing themselves individually to liquidity drying up for them certain had a liquidity crisis) but a solvency crisis. David Merkel points out that liquidity always exists, it just goes where the marginal credit buyer has gone. Where insolvency risk seems to be increasing, the marginal buyer can become very scarce and will provide it to areas seemingly exposed to less risk. At the end of the day it is solvency that is our problem, and until we solve that liquidity will go to those perceived to be least at risk. Right now that is the government and those they are backing. Hence a credit crunch for much of the economy.

Speaking of credit, consumer credit has now declined for 11 straight months. A record, and by a long shot. (Click image for a larger version.)

In the “no big surprise department,” and paralleling the argument I made at the time, it has now been shown that the ban on short selling during the crisis did not help support prices and damaged stock market liquidity. In the no surprise at all department the biggest complainers turned out to have fundamental problems that short sellers were pointing out accurately (much better than our regulators.) The loudest complainer of all, Overstock.com and their bizarre CEO, Patrick Byrne. The upshot, they have been cooking their books for years, just like the short sellers were claiming.

Cross posted at The View from the Bluff

After months of behind closed door negotiations, it’s suddenly “sunshine” time. Why in the world wouldn’t Republicans be suspicious?  It’s hard not to conclude (especially after the results of the televised meeting at the GOP retreat) that this is nothing but political theater designed to show the Republicans as “obstructionists” and the “party of no”.

What the televised “summit” will likely consist of is Obama and the Democrats pushing for acceptance of the same bill now pending and the Republicans saying “no”. The desired outcome is to have them say it right there in the open on TV.  Of course they’d love to have enough Republicans submit to the pressure and commit to passage as an outcome. That’s most likely not going to happen. The most likely scenario has the Republicans say “no” and Democrats claim “see we tried to include them, but they refuse” and use that as a justification for reconciliation. As Democrats see it, it would be a win-win for them with a chance to make the GOP look bad.

The House Republican leadership has sent a letter to the President in which they question all of this. You can read it here. My favorite part of the letter comes after a series of very pointed questions are put to him:

Your answers to these critical questions will help determine whether this will be a truly open, bipartisan discussion or merely an intramural exercise before Democrats attempt to jam through a job-killing health care bill that the American people can’t afford and don’t support. ‘Bipartisanship’ is not writing proposals of your own behind closed doors, then unveiling them and demanding Republican support. Bipartisan ends require bipartisan means.These questions are also designed to try and make sense of the widening gap between the President’s rhetoric on bipartisanship and the reality. We cannot help but notice that each of the President’s recent bipartisan overtures has been coupled with harsh, misleading partisan attacks. For instance, the President decries Republican ‘obstruction’ when it was Republicans who first proposed bipartisan health care talks last May.

The questions mentioned address reconciliation, starting over and other important ones. It’s a letter that makes it clear that the House GOP leadership is very suspicious of the intent of the so-called summit – and rightfully so.

Of course that doesn’t mean they won’t end up playing along. The possibility that the summit would turn into a “bash the GOP” event is something they just won’t be able to stand and will show up in an attempt to avoid that.  Instead, they’ll just play into Democratic hands.  If I were them, I’d instead issue a statement saying that the GOP has concluded there is no good faith attempt on the behalf of the administration or the Democrats toward bi-partisanship in the summit citing their refusal to reset the debate and include the GOP from the beginning. As a consequence the Republicans see no utility in trying to make a silk purse out of the sow’s ear of legislation they already universally oppose.

I don’t know about you but I’d respect them much more if they did that than if they show up and play along in a bit of political theater that is designed primarily to cast them in a bad light for the benefit of the opposition.

UPDATE: White House (non)response to the GOP’s letter.

~McQ

First, let’s take a brief look at how the monthly Employment Situation figures are compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  The BLS combines two surveys to compile the Employment Situation.  The first survey is the Establishment Survey.  That’s a pretty accurate survey, because it consists of asking businesses to provide hard payroll data on the number of existing jobs.   The second is the Household Survey, which is where the train runs off the rails.

For the Household survey, they ask if you are employed.  If the answer is “No”, they then ask if you if you’re actively looking for a job. If the answer is no, then they just simply take you out of the labor force.  They don’t care whether you aren’t looking for work because you know there are no jobs available, or whether you’ve retired and are planning to sail a sloop across the Pacific.  If you aren’t actively looking for work, you aren’t part of the labor force.  So, the official unemployment rate generally understates–sometimes substantially–the real level of unemployment.

Fortunately, there is a better way to calculate the rate of real unemployment, and the BLS web site conveniently provides you with all the data you need to do it.  From here, we only need three items: The Civilian Noninstitutional Population, the Participation Rate, and the number of Employed.

The first thing we need to do is figure out the Labor Force Participation Rate during the most recent period of full employment.  If you take the average monthly labor force participation rate from the 70 months between Jan 04 and Oct 08, you get a participation rate in the labor for of 66% of the Civilian Noninstitutional Population.

Next, you multiply the Civilian Noninstitutional Population by 0.66.  That gives you the size of the normal labor force at full employment.

Next, you take the number of Employed, and calculate the actual rate of unermployment using the following equation:

1-(Employed/Normal Labor Force)=Unemployment Rate.

So, with this method, we can compare the unemployment level of Oct 08, right before the economy cratered, to last month.  When we do so, we get the following results:

OCT 08:
Civilian Noninstitutinal Population: 234,612,000
Participation Rate: 66%
Labor Force: 154,843,920
Employed: 145,543,000
Unemployment Rate: 6.0%

Jan 10:
Civilian Noninstitutinal Population: 236,832,000
Participation Rate: 66%
Labor Force: 156,309,120
Employed: 136,809,000
Unemployment Rate: 12.5%

Note that this calculation for Oct 08 is very close to the official unemployment rate of 6.1%.  But as the economy gets worse the official employment rates show greater and greater variance.  In other words, the official unemployment rate becomes progressively less accurate as the Employment Situation worsens, substantially understating the actual rate of unemployment.  This is, by the way a feature of the BLS’s method, not a bug.  It is no coincidence, as our Soviet friends used to say, that discouraged workers fall out of the labor force calculations.

Now, this measure I’ve explained doesn’t tell us anything about people who are working only part-time, when they’d prefer a full time job, so it doesn’t tell us much about underemployment.  But it does tell us, based on the recent historical labor force participation rate, what the size of the labor force should be.  Once we know that, it becomes very easy to see what the actual rate of unemployment is in real terms, rather than the notional terms provided by the Household Survey.

According the BLS, however, the Civilian noninstitutional population has increased by 2,220,000 people  from 234,612,000 to 236,932,000, while, at the same time, the civilian labor force has shrunk by 2,055,000 people  from 155,012,000 to 153,455,000.  Using the BLS numbers, then, the labor force participation rate is 64.6%.  That kind of demographic change might be expected in a couple of years when the baby Boomers begin retiring in large numbers, but for right now, it seems…counter-intuitive.

In any event, 12.5% unemployment is a far more realistic number than the BLS estimate of 9.7%.

Remember it was the independents who put Obama over the top in 2008. Also remember it was they who put Scott Brown over the top in MA and were key in the elections in VA and NJ.

As for Obama’s personal popularity, that too has suffered.

And while GOPers strive to avoid attacking Obama personally, for fear of offending voters who see him in a favorable light personally, even that aura of invincibility is wearing off. Independent voters view Obama negatively, too, by a 39% favorable to 52% unfavorable margin. All registered voters still see Obama favorably by a 50%-44% margin, but that’s down 5 points in just 2 months.

However, there’s more to this than just Obama’s job approval and personal ratings. Also found in this poll is a strong trend toward anti-incumbency:

Meanwhile, members of Congress should brace for a difficult election year. 42% of registered voters said they would back their current member of Congress, while 44% said they would support someone else — a drop of 9 points in support of the incumbent in just 2 months.

Rassmussen has a poll out that begins to flesh out why that trend is building. Three-quarters of the public, according to his latest polling data, express some level of anger at the policies of the federal government. That’s up 4 points from November. It is also why I call the Tea Parties the “tip of the populist iceberg”. There are a whole lot of unhappy voters out there.

So how does it break down? Well, not as Jacob Weisberg and the “ignorant, childish voters who want to live in Candyland” crew would have you believe.

Part of the frustration is likely due to the belief of 60% of voters that neither Republican political leaders nor Democratic political leaders have a good understanding of what is needed today. That finding is identical to the view last September, just after the tumultuous congressional town hall meetings the month before. But only 52% felt this way in November.

And, as time goes by, this trend continues to grow. Note that the leaders of both parties are identified as being clueless by this 60%.

So this week let’s revisit the comparison between the Political Class and the Mainstream (you proles in flyover land) voters. And as we saw last time we checked it out, the PC bunch is totally clueless:

The divide between the Political Class and Mainstream voters, however, is remarkable. Eighty-eight percent (88%) of Mainstream voters are angry, but 84% of the Political Class are not. Those numbers include 57% of Mainstream voters who are Very Angry and 51% of the Political Class who are not angry at all.

But then 68% of Mainstream voters don’t think the leaders of either major political party have a good understanding of what the country needs today. Sixty-one percent (61%) of the Political Class disagree.

By comparison, the majority of Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliateds don’t believe the current political leaders have a good handle on what is needed today.

Older voters and higher-income voters share that belief most strongly.

Thus the Tea Parties and the very negative reaction by the PC to them. They simply don’t get it. Which is why we’re suffering through this spate of leftist pundit tantrums in which they damn the people, democracy, and the opposition for being unwilling to roll over and submit to their sublime enlightenment, ability to know what is good for us and benevolent despotism. We’re seeing laments about how the good old day before the damned internet, talk radio and 24 hour cable let the enlightened elite do as they wish.

Look around you my friends – to this point that’s worked out just wonderfully hasn’t it?

Rasmussen lists a bunch of reaction which pretty much outline what you’re hearing from the most vocal of the Tea Partiers:

Most voters oppose the now-seemingly-derailed health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats for months. They continue to have very mixed feelings about the $787-billion economic stimulus plan approved by Congress last February.

Looking back, most voters still don’t approve of the multi-billion-dollar government bailouts of the financial industry and troubled automakers General Motors and Chrysler.

Forty-nine percent (49%) worry the government will try to do too much to help the economy, while 39% fear it won’t do enough.

As the economy continues to stumble along, 59% of voters believe cutting taxes is better than increasing government spending as a job-creation tool, but 72% expect the nation’s elected politicians to increase spending instead.

Eighty-three percent (83%) of Americans say the size of the federal budget deficit is due more to the unwillingness of politicians to cut government spending than to the reluctance of taxpayers to pay more in taxes.

Voters have consistently said for months that they have more confidence in their own economic judgment than that of either the president or Congress.

Charles Krauthammer calls this “The Great Peasant Revolt of 2010″. And in a very real sense it is. What Republicans haven’t yet grasped is this revolt is pretty non-partisan. The reason Republicans seem less threatened by it is because of their fiscally conservative, limited government philosophy. Democrats, on the other hand, suffer more because of their tendency toward fiscal profligacy and government expansion. The problem for Republicans, however, is the country is no longer in a mood to see them give fiscal conservatism and limited government lip service.  If you don’t believe me, take a look at this Iowa poll:

A third of Iowans from across the political spectrum say they support the “tea party” movement, sounding a loud chorus of dissatisfaction with government, according to The Des Moines Register’s new Iowa Poll.

Neither party has a lock on these restless advocates of limited government and fiscal control, according to the poll. However, their conservative leanings appear to give Republicans a greater opportunity than Democrats to make gains at the dawn of a volatile election year.

Is the GOP listening?

It should be clear to both sides that we’re moving into an era of “do what you say or be gone”. The days when incumbents only left office when they assumed room temperature, as did Jack Murtha today, are coming to an end.  What the Tea Parties signal is a much more connected, networked and activist population which has been empowered by the communications technology of today – much to the chagrin of the elitists.

The fun is just beginning. Barack Obama and the Democrats may not realize it, but the era of big government is over.

UPDATE: Gallup also has polling numbers out today. They run different approval ratings for Obama on 9 different issues.

At 36%, Americans give President Barack Obama his lowest job approval rating yet on his handling of the economy. By contrast, the president’s 51% approval rating on handling foreign affairs is up slightly from last month.

As I’ve noted any number of times, the foreign policy’s crisis is yet to come.  2009 was a year of checking out the new president and assessing his strengths and weaknesses.  2010 will be the year that actually tests his foreign policy skills and abilities.

On domestic issues, Obama’s approval rating is in the tank  at 36%.

Most interesting though was the fact that in the list of 9 issues, both foreign and domestic, independents did not once give Obama a majority approval rating, again making the point that indies are not at all happy with his administration.

~McQ

The Wall Street Journal carries the Bernanke plan for doing so. The centerpiece of that plan is found in the interest rate the Fed pays banks on the reserves it keeps. Right now, that’s .25%. The plan is to gradually raise that rate with the assumption that such rate raises will give an incentive to banks to keep even more money on reserve and thus out of circulation. This “interest on excess reserves” then is the primary vehicle the Fed plans to use to begin to pull money out of circulation.

But that’s a process fraught with risk. Because the immediate effect of any such interest rate increase will be to tighten credit. And depending on the strength of the economy, it has the potential to affect it negatively. Says the WSJ:

Extricating itself from these actions [low interest rates and trillions of infused dollars] will require both skill and luck: If the Fed moves too fast, it could provoke a new economic downturn; if it waits too long, it could unleash inflation, and if it moves clumsily it could unsettle markets in ways that disrupt the nascent economic recovery.

It’s pretty easy to drop interest rates and pump money into a down economy. But going the other way is not at all as easy. “Skill and luck” are understatements. Timing will have to almost be perfect. The problem is, should markets get skittish because of moves by the Fed that it sees as having a negative effect, things could break negatively quickly and spiral out of control. While the Fed would like everyone to believe this is a piece of cake – and will continue to tell us it is – it’s not at all an easy thing to do. The desire of those talking positive about the ease of draining the monetary swamp is to bolster confidence and allay fears if possible so a panic which could undermine the whole plan doesn’t develop. That, however, is going to be extremely difficult:

The nature of its exit from today’s unusually low interest rates will affect everything from mortgage rates and what companies pay on short-term borrowings to the rates savers earn. The timing and sequence of the steps are the subject of intense speculation in financial markets.

At the risk of boring the living hell out of you, I want to stress that this plan may be one of the most important plans in quite some time. If it isn’t executed perfectly, we could see a quick slide back into recession or rampant inflation. Read the whole article if you get a chance. The Fed has some other contingencies and plans as well. But as you’ll see as you read through them, all present the possibility of having a very negative downside if the strength of the economy is misread and/or the execution of each portion of the plan isn’t almost perfect.

The economic high-wire act – without a net – the Fed is about to embark upon is a very difficult one. Yes, it’s necessary and, in fact, critical – but it isn’t going to be easy. And if screwed up, could be pretty devastating to a recovering economy.

~McQ

~McQ

The entire bit of revisionist history (with the normal “blame Bush” tautology) is aimed at justifying this paragraph:

Americans should be anxious, for reasons including the huge deficit. But the cold economic truth is this: At a time of high unemployment and fragile growth, the last thing the government should do is to slash spending. That will only drive the economy into deeper trouble.

What the NYT and the Krugman’s of the world believe is government spending can be substituted for private spending and have the same result – economic growth. And that economic growth, spurred by this spending, will create jobs. But if you think about it, unless the government is buying goods and services produced by the private sector, that’s most likely not going to happen, is it? Temporary jobs located in “infrastructure improvement,” unemployment benefit extensions and jobs “programs” don’t create jobs. Private sector growth does. And when government is borrowing .40 cents for every dollar it spends, it starts to dry up the private credit market. That means if there is a desire to expand, the credit isn’t as readily available as it would be if the 800 pound credit hog weren’t in the market.

Then there’s this:

To truly tame deficits will require serious health care reform …

To which Kling replies:

In Washington, serious health care reform means “fixing” private health insurance. But our deficits are caused not by problems in private health insurance. They are caused by the structure of Medicare and Medicaid. That is where we need reform. But the Times and other liberal mouthpieces need to create a narrative that makes it sound as though unsound government programs are the fault of the private sector.

Spot on. This has been the most irritating part of the “health care reform” issue. It is the public programs – which neither party will touch – that are breaking the bank, yet we continually hear politicians on the left talk about “greedy [private] insurance companies” as the sole reason health care costs or so high. In fact, without private health care insurance to pay the difference, Medicare and Medicaid would have foundered long ago. But the point is the deficit problem is not one caused by private insurance.  It has no effect on public debt.  That is caused by the mismanagement of the government programs. And other than a passing wave at “stopping waste, fraud and abuse” – the promise of every politician since the inception of those programs, and accomplished by none of them – this “reform” package ignores the real problem while attacking the private market.

But back to the primary point of the NYT’s attempt to persuade you that deficit spending – massive deficit spending – is a good thing:

Here is an unpopular but undeniable fact of life: When private sector demand is weak, the federal government must serve as the spender of last resort. Otherwise, collapsing demand sets in motion a negative, self-reinforcing spiral in which lack of demand — for goods, services and new employees — leads to ever deepening economic weakness.

And here’s the undeniable economic truth about the snake oil they’re peddling:

The narrative is that we are suffering from a shortfall in demand. The reality is that the private sector has decided that workers should be hired on the basis of profits, rather than on the basis of debt. The government may choose to make a different decision, of course, but that will not necessarily strengthen our economy.

One of the many economists not at all in agreement – despite President Obama’s claim to the contrary – with the prescription that deficit spending is not only good, but necessary. And while they can blame the situation on anyone they choose, the decisions being made to run up this massive debt based on some pretty flaky economic logic are theirs and theirs alone.

~McQ

The intro and outro music is Vena Cava by 50 Foot Wave, and is available for free download here.

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Yes, friends, it is a call-in show, so do call in.

The Super-Bowl Half-Time (or blowout) Podcast

Subject(s):

Unemployment: What are the real numbers? Will it pick up or are we, as many fear, in a jobless recovery? Or are we in a recovery at all?

Tea Party Convention: Birthers and profit and Palin, oh my! Is the movement being co-opted? Is it a true populist movement?

China: Is the rhetoric heating up? Do they feel they have us over a barrel and now’s the time to assert themselves? Can they be counted on to support tougher sanctions on Iran?

What has spurred this turn of events?

The finding came after battles over Taiwan, Tibet, trade, climate change, internet freedom and human rights which have poisoned relations in the three months since President Barack Obama made a fruitless visit to Beijing.

You’ll most likely remember how the administration touted the visit as one which significantly improved out relations with China. Apparently the administration was the only one which saw it that way:

During Obama’s visit, the US ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, claimed relations were “really at an all-time high in terms of the bilateral atmosphere … a cruising altitude that is higher than any other time in recent memory”, according to an official transcript.

The ambassador must have been the only person at his embassy to think so, said a diplomat close to the talks.

“The truth was that the atmosphere was cold and intransigent when the president went to Beijing yet his China team went on pretending that everything was fine,” the diplomat said.

In reality, Chinese officials argued over every item of protocol, rigged a town hall meeting with a pre-selected audience, censored the only interview Obama gave to a Chinese newspaper and forbade the Americans to use their own helicopters to fly him to the Great Wall.

President Hu Jintao refused to give an inch on Obama’s plea to raise the value of the Chinese currency, while his vague promises of co-operation on climate change led the Americans to blunder into a fiasco at the Copenhagen summit three weeks later.

Diplomats say they have been told that there was “frigid” personal chemistry between Obama and the Chinese president, with none of the superficial friendship struck up by previous leaders of the two nations.

And, if you can believe it, it has gone downhill from there.

An independent survey of Chinese-language media for The Sunday Times has found army and navy officers predicting a military showdown and political leaders calling for China to sell more arms to America’s foes. The trigger for their fury was Obama’s decision to sell $6.4 billion (£4 billion) worth of weapons to Taiwan, the thriving democratic island that has ruled itself since 1949.

“We should retaliate with an eye for an eye and sell arms to Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela,” declared Liu Menxiong, a member of the Chinese people’s political consultative conference.

He added: “We have nothing to be afraid of. The North Koreans have stood up to America and has anything happened to them? No. Iran stands up to America and does disaster befall it? No.”

Apparently they’re on to the new but unspoken motto of the Obama administration “speak a lot, but do nothing”. What is being sensed by these military leaders in China is weakness. And such weakness is never left alone or ignored in international politics – it is always, in some way, shape or form exploited. While some may see this as nothing more than saber rattling, knowing the Chinese, it’s much more than that.  It signals a significant change in our relationship:

Chinese analysts think the leadership, riding a wave of patriotism as the year of the tiger dawns, may go further.

“This time China must punish the US,” said Major-General Yang Yi, a naval officer. “We must make them hurt.” A major-general in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Luo Yuan, told a television audience that more missiles would be deployed against Taiwan. And a PLA strategist, Colonel Meng Xianging, said China would “qualitatively upgrade” its military over the next 10 years to force a showdown “when we’re strong enough for a hand-to-hand fight with the US”.

Chinese indignation was compounded when the White House said Obama would meet the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, in the next few weeks.

“When someone spits on you, you have to get back,” said Huang Xiangyang, a commentator in the China Daily newspaper, usually seen as a showcase for moderate opinion.

If that’s the moderate opinion, you can imagine what the more hawkish among China’s opinion makers are saying.

This is what happens when amateurs play at foreign policy and those they’re dealing with sniff out weak (or non-existent) leadership. As I mentioned quite some time ago, 2009 would be a year of relative calm as other nations took the measure of the new administration and what they could expect. Once that was done, 2010 would most likely be the year when they’d act – and frankly, given this from China, it’s most likely not going to be a pleasant year for US foreign policy.

Oh, and if you think China is willing to back the US on new sanctions against Iran – as the administration has been claiming – I’d be willing to take that bet and give odds that no such backing will ever be given by China.

~McQ

As most of us who read pundits on the left have come to realize over the years, they don’t have a very high opinion of the proletariat. In fact, truth be told, they’re pretty sure we should all just be glad they’re around to save us from ourselves and should shut up and let them do it. And when we’re not compliant in that regard, we get rants like this which Weisberg penned entitled, “Down With the People” and which he further subtitles, “Blame the childish, ignorant American public—not politicians—for our political and economic crisis.”

You really don’t need to read the article to understand the thesis involved here. But to give the devil his due, there’s a kernel of truth to it – certainly some of our problems stem from “the people.” The left for instance. Those who don’t pay anything into the system for another. Both of those groups have forever been fans of more government, more spending and more goodies. And those desires have been enabled by their politicians (with, admittedly, help from some politicians on the right).

Anyway, Weisberg tries to justify his thesis on the back of polls he finds contradictory at best. For instance:

Anybody who says you can’t have it both ways clearly hasn’t been spending much time reading opinion polls lately. One year ago, 59 percent of the American public liked the stimulus plan, according to Gallup. A few months later, with the economy still deeply mired in recession, a majority of the same size said Obama was spending too much money on it.

A couple of points here. One – Obviously 41% of the American public didn’t like it from the beginning. My bet is they didn’t represent the left or those who had no tax skin in the game. It’s easy to be for “stimulus spending” when paying for the resultant deficit created by that spending isn’t going to come out of your pay check. And that is a class of people the Democrats have judiciously created, nurtured and expanded over the years. So that is a political result, isn’t it Mr. Weisberg?

Secondly – it became obvious fairly quickly even to the “no tax skin” group that what was being called “stimulus spending” wasn’t stimulating anything. Consequently when they saw no direct benefit coming their way – like that of not having to pay taxes on their income they presently enjoy – they quickly abandoned their support.

Tim Cavanaugh, at Reason’s Hit and Run, has an even more pointed rebuttal:

If Weisberg is looking for consistency, he might look to an earlier debate over massive government intervention in the private sector: the $700 billion bailout plan that eventually became the Troubled Asset Relief Program. A large majority of Americans continue to oppose this bailout, just as they opposed it at its inception — a time when Weisberg, and a good two dozen guys exactly like him, were welcoming the TARP proposal as a respite from the ravages of capitalism.

And the auto bailout. And the Wall Street bailout. Etc. Weisberg, much like the East Anglia CRU, is engaged in a little cherry-picking of data to support his premise. Had it been the majority of the people and not the politicians who had their way, TARP and the “stimulus” would have never happened and GM, Chrysler, Wall Street and a good number of banks (plus Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac) would be emerging from bankruptcy right about now – or not.

Much of the rest of the article is more poll quoting along the same vein and with similar rebuttals. Cavanaugh spends sufficient time properly ripping the arguments apart that I don’t have to waste mine.

All of that is only a prelude to the real reason for the Weisberg article:

The politicians thriving at the moment are the ones who embody this live-for-the-today mentality, those best able to call for the impossible with a straight face. Take Scott Brown, the newly elected Senator from Massachusetts. Brown wants government to take in less revenue: He has signed a no-new-taxes pledge and called for an across-the-board tax cut on families and businesses. But Brown doesn’t want government to spend any less money: He opposes reductions in Medicare payments and all other spending cuts of any significance. He says we can lower deficits above 10 percent of GDP—the largest deficits since World War II, deficits so large that they threaten our future as the world’s leading military and economic power—simply by cutting government waste. No sensible person who has spent five minutes looking at the budget thinks that’s remotely possible. The charitable interpretation is that Brown embodies naive optimism, an approach to politics that Ronald Reagan left as one of his more dubious legacies to Republican Party. A better explanation is that Brown is consciously pandering to the public’s ignorance and illusions the same way the rest of his Republican colleagues are.

You have to love the “pivot” and the projection.  Classic.  Barack Obama and the Democrats have just introduced budgets and deficits which, in Weisberg’s own words “threaten our future as the world’s leading military and economic power” and it’s Scott Brown’s fault. And he has the further audacity to then claim Brown “is consciously pandering to the public’s ignorance and illusions the same way the rest of his Republican colleagues are.”

Really Mr. Weisberg? Are they the ones saying “deficit reduction is important, but not now” as President Obama said in the State of the Union address? Is it Scott Brown and the Republicans who are responsible for the planned deficits we see in the chart below? Is it really they who are “consciously pandering to the public’s ignorance and illusions” by claiming we can have these massive deficits now and our cake later?

The 40% of those who’ve consistently objected to the profligate spending, increased programs and expanding government are those who actually do have “tax skin” in the game. The problem for Democrats and the left is these polls now show that it is they who are gaining allies out here due to their opposition and not the left. That obviously has Weisberg and his cronies all but apoplectic and casting around everywhere for an acceptable scape-goat.

That scape-goat are the people, who don’t know what’s good for them, and the Republicans, who haven’t had the power to even stop the leftist juggernaut in Congress if they tried. Of course the latter is a simple fact of numbers and has been for a year – and we don’t need polls to tell us that.

Perhaps Atlas is finally shrugging. Those that pay the freight – and you see them represented in the tip of the iceberg known as the Tea Parties – are standing up and saying “no”.  No more. We’re done with this.

That means both Democrats and Republicans – even Scott Brown if he can’t figure it out – are starting to be held to account. And while it doesn’t appear that Weisberg understands that building dynamic, it is clear that a demoralized and scared Democratic party heading into midterm elections is beginning too.

I agree with Weisberg in one respect – politicians “who embody this live-for-the-today mentality” need to go. The difference is I see more in Mr. Weisberg’s chosen party than I see in the GOP. Those of both parties need a pink slip.

That said, blaming where we are on the people has some cache – after all, the politicians aren’t in a position to do what they do without the people’s support at the ballot box. And, even when they’re obviously corrupt like Jack Murtha, they’re left in office, year after year after year. That can indeed be laid at the feet of the people, at least in that district. But when he spouts off inclusively about “the American people”, Weisberg ignores a good 40% if not half of this nation which doesn’t, has never and will never support the tax and spend nonsense that has gotten us to this point. Pretending that’s not so doesn’t make it true.

Democratic politicians are now trying to pass legislation that a frustrated Weisberg and the left want but, per the polls he likes to quote, the people don’t. They’ve sent very clear messages to national politicians via votes in VA, NJ and MA to remind them for and at whose sufferance they work. Weisberg prefers to call that the actions of a fickle, ignorant and childish public. Instead, thankfully, it is a system actually working as it was intended to work – and just in the nick of time.

UPDATE: Kathy Kattenburg at The Occasionally Moderate Voice doesn’t appear to understand what’s been written here and thereby gets it wrong – as usual.

~McQ

“It is very unusual indeed to see such a dramatic shift in opinion in such a short period,” Populus managing director Michael Simmonds told BBC News.

“The British public are sceptical about man’s contribution to climate change – and becoming more so,” he added.

“More people are now doubters than firm believers.”

A definite “deficit of trust” developing about the “science” of global warming – particularly that trying to hang the blame on the activities of man.

And in more “deficit of trust” news, India has declared it will form it’s own scientific panel to study climate since it finds the IPCC unreliable:

The Indian government has established its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group headed by its own leading scientist Dr R.K Pachauri.

[...]

“There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism. I am for climate science. I think people misused [the] IPCC report, [the] IPCC doesn’t do the original research which is one of the weaknesses… they just take published literature and then they derive assessments, so we had goof-ups on Amazon forest, glaciers, snow peaks.

“I respect the IPCC but India is a very large country and cannot depend only on [the] IPCC and so we have launched the Indian Network on Comprehensive Climate Change Assessment (INCCA),” he said.

I think India picks up the fatal problem with the current “science” – it’s more of a form of evangelism than it is real science, and “facts” are manipulated (or made up) to fit.

The Dutch government is also “not amused”. The Dutch environment minister, Jaqueline Cramer, has called for a complete investigation of the 2007 IPCC report. A Dutch magazine uncovered the fact that it incorrectly states 55 percent of the country lies below sea level:

When Cramer heard of that blunder she wrote a letter to the IPCC, saying she was “not amused” there were mistakes in the scientific report she bases the Dutch environmental policies on. Now she is confronted with errors in the data about her own country. “This can’t happen again,” the minister told reporters in The Hague on Wednesday. “The public trust in science and politics has been badly damaged.”

Ya think?

Cramer puts her finger on the problem governments are now confronting given the errors, some relatively trivial and some profound, in the IPCC’s report. When will that sort of concern surface here? As recently as the SOTU, President Obama still holds to the alarmist line that the “science is overwhelming” when, in fact, the “science” is being overwhelmed by revelations of data manipulation, fraud and made-up “facts”.

~McQ

That historically all-white club known as the U.S. Senate is likely to lose what little diversity it has after November’s elections.

Two white men will be competing for President Barack Obama’s former seat in Illinois, now held by Roland Burris, the chamber’s lone African-American. Appointed by the scandal-tainted former governor, Burris won’t be seeking a full term.

In contests in Florida, Texas and North Carolina, black candidates face daunting challenges to joining the august body, from difficulty raising cash to lack of name recognition to formidable rivals.

Got it?  Yeah, no mention of other “minorities”.  Apparently “diversity” is now only measured by the inclusion of only one race.  In fact, despite the assertion in the article, the Senate is not – let me repeat that – not an “all-white club”.

While 94 members are white, 2 are Asian and 3 are Hispanic and 1 is black.  17 are women.

To make the point that it’s really not diversity that this is about, the article notes:

Blacks comprise 12.2 percent of the nation’s population, but you wouldn’t know it in the 100-member Senate. Come next year, the total number could add up to zero.

“It certainly is not a desirable state of affairs,” said David Bositis, a senior political analyst with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Bositis noted that blacks don’t make up the majority population in any state and in states where there are large numbers of blacks, as in the South, there are racial divisions that make getting elected difficult.

Apparently democracy and the will of the people are wonderful things unless they don’t yield the results the diversity police think they should.  Then it is “not a desirable state of affairs”.

Let’s try this – how many black candidates are the Democrats, the party that positions itself as the party of African Americans, running for the Senate in predominantly blue states?  Why is it that the Democratic party has a white guy running for Barack Obama’s seat?  Whose fault is that?  Why don’t the Democrats have an African American available to contest that and other Senate seats in opposition to Republicans if this is such a undesirable state of affairs?

The implicit assumption made by Bostis is “racial divisons” in the South are the reason a fairly large black population can’t elect a black Senator.  It couldn’t at all be the fact that they’re all deep red states, could it?  And if we grant him his assumption that the problem in the South is racism, then one assumes that such a problem wouldn’t exist in the North in deep blue states, correct (otherwise why try to make such an implication)?  So where are the black Senators then – from Michigan, for instance?  Why don’t Washington or Oregon have black Senators?  New York?  Massachusetts? Afterall, what’s being implied is that race isn’t really an issue elsewhere for blacks - only in the South.  Never mind the fact that the deep red South would be unlikely to elect a Democrat to begin whether he or she be white or black.�

Anyway, this one just struck me wrong.  This is a nonsense story spun as something significant.  If the diversity police  want to point fingers, Mr. Bostis, et al should be asking the Democrats why members of a constituency they claim is theirs aren’t being put forward as candidates for the “historically all-white club”  in deeply blue states where, one assumes, they’d have a great chance as the party’s primary choice.

~McQ

Unsurprisingly I don’t believe a word of it.  Call me a cynic, call me a skeptic, but I just don’t believe much of anything coming out of the government these days (I know, let’s call it a “deficit of trust”).  Don’t forget that 9.7% number comes on the heels of a report saying the government forgot to count over 800,000 lost jobs last year.

When the government releases Friday’s unemployment report, nearly a million jobs could be erased. The change won’t show up in the monthly report. Rather, the expected job will show up in the government’s revised job losses from April 2008 to March 2009, showing the labor market was in much worse shape than we knew at the time.

So here we are, rampant and exceedingly high unemployment, no relief in sight and the unicorns and rainbows crowd are spinning the numbers and telling us all is well and getting better.

Well, economic well-being, like is said of politics, is all local.  And for the most part, the locals aren’t buying the spin.  Here’s the brutal truth:

An unemployment rate that’s projected to average 10 percent this year will likely weigh on consumer spending, preventing the biggest part of the economy from accelerating. Without additional gains in sales, companies will be forced to keep cutting costs, limiting staff in order to boost profits.

“Businesses are simply postponing their hiring for as long as possible,” Richard DeKaser, chief economist at Woodley Park Research in Washington, said before the report. “The willingness to hire is not there.”

Fewer customers, less spending. Less spending, less of a need to make things.  Less demand for products means less demand for more employees.

Key line: “Without additional gains in sales, companies will be forced to keep cutting costs, limiting staff in order to boost profits.”

And that’s precisely what they’re doing.  The Labor Department reports:

Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased at a 6.2 percent annual rate during the fourth quarter of 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This gain in productivity reflects increases of 7.2 percent in output and 1.0 percent in hours worked. (All quarterly percent changes in this release are seasonally adjusted annual rates.) This was the first quarterly increase in hours worked since the second quarter of 2007 (0.9 percent). Productivity increased 5.1 percent over the last four quarters –more than during any similar period since output per hour rose 6.1 percent from the first quarter of 2001 to the first quarter of 2002.

Even the Riddler could puzzle this one out.  Worker productivity has increased 5.1% over the last four quarters.  But unemployment has continued to grow.  What does that mean?  Well it means companies and businesses have found a way to increase production with fewer employees.  And that, as the key line above suggests, boosts profits.

Now that productivity increase can come in many ways.  Simply distributing the same (or even increased) work load to fewer employees.  That’s happening all over the place now.  Then, in certain industries,  automation replaces employees (it doesn’t require health insurance, vacation days, a 401k and isn’t represented by a union).  And in some places it’s a combination of both plus modified business models. 

The bottom line is there’s not likely to be that much hiring if and when the economy actually turns around unless a huge increase in demand is realized.   And even then, employers are likely to try to hold out as long as possible, given their productivity gains, until those productivity gains are neutralized.  I’m sure there’s a tremendous gap between now and that point.  Then add in the market instability brought on by pending legislation like health care reform and cap-and-trade, and you can see high unemployment in the future for quite some time.

But the unicorn and rainbow crowd are going to tell you everything, relatively speaking, is getting better.  The fact that your relatives are all unemployed and your job isn’t looking so hot at the moment either will cause you to doubt their assertions.  Do.  Doubt them I mean.  They’re as full of crap as a Christmas goose.  And that’s becoming more and more obvious each day as we watch this dance of the dodgers continue.  Because, you know, you can’t handle the truth.  No, that’s not true.  If they tell you the truth, they too will be unemployed.

“Deficit of trust?”

A true understatement.

~McQ

Take Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.)(please!).  He’s upset and demanding a person who is doing critical aid work in Haiti and who had the courtesy to brief the Congressional Black Caucus about that relief effort be demoted.

Why?  Because he’s doing a bad job?  Of course not – because he didn’t have any black faces on his staff when they showed up for the briefing.

“I was alarmed and chagrined to learn that none of the approximately dozen staff he brought with him were African American,” Conyers wrote in the letter. “This is so serious an error in judgment that it warrants his immediate demotion to a subordinate position at AID.”

“Alarmed and chagrined”?  A “serious … error in judgment”? 

No word on how he felt the team was doing in providing aid to Haitians, of course.  This person’s “sin” was not having the proper diversity of staff.  And the punishment for that sin is demotion - Conyers being a compasionate bigot didn’t want to see this person lose their job.

Some day, one can hope, this sort of nonsense will all be a thing of the past.  But it again points out why attitudes such as this and demands for “numbers” over merit hurt African-Americans more than help them.

Then there’s the NBC Cafeteria Story :

So who at NBC thought it would be a good idea for the special today to be, among other things, fried chicken, “in honor of Black History Month”?

The accompanying picture shows the menu (fried chicken, collard greens, etc) topped by a title saying “NBC  – In Honor Of Black Historty Month”.

Apparently this just offended the hell out of some black musician who eats there. 

The irony?

Well, you can see it for yourself, below:

Yes friends, the insensitive lout who foisted this offensive menu on unassuming black folks was an African-American cook who had fought for the last two years to be able to present meals in honor of black history month. To quote her:

It’s not trying to offend anybody and it’s not trying to suggest that that’s all that African-Americans eat. It’s just a good meal.

All I have to say is thank goodness she didn’t put watermelon on the menu for desert – they’d have probably rioted in the street. Need more irony? If you were to go to any place that purported to serve “soul food” and fried chicken wasn’t on the menu, you could rightfully question their authenticity.

The whole point is it is time to move past quotas and taking offense at every preceived slight. Now there’s a controversy about saying “retard”. Certainly we should not purposely offend others. And yes certain words should not be used – the “n” word being primary among them.

But it seems like we spend an enormous amount of energy and time looking for reasons to be offended anymore. That speaks to the success of those who’ve made policial correctness such a pernicious force in our lives. Political correctness (and I extend that to the “diversity mix” Conyers is demanding) has literally destroyed tolerance, which is ironic, given it is the PC crowd that is normally demanding tolerance for other issues they favor.

The NBC story is a perfect example of what that intolerance it brings. The assumption is made that the reason fried chicken is on the menu is someone is totally (and purposely) insensitive and the reaction is to immediately choose to take offense. And that’s a key point.  It is a choice.  It couldn’t just be “a good meal” that the person thought others might enjoy. Nope – the fact that most eating there would enjoy it, and most likely do eat fried chicken by choice when elsewhere must be subordinated to the PC demand that they be intolerant of such a perceived slight and demand the insensitivity be addressed.

This sort of knee-jerk PC stupidity needs to stop. And yes, I’m intolerant of it. So sue me.

~McQ

Of course I’m of the opinion there’s a third choice.  Cut spending commensurate with the tax cuts and reduce the size of government until you’re able to balance the budget.  Then start reducing the debt.  Apparently that wasn’t one of the choices however.

On to the poll.  Here are the results with which the left has decided it can use to deride the right as lying no-good deficit lovers:

Fifty percent (50%) of conservatives are comfortable with a budget deficit if taxes are cut versus 63% of liberals who favor a balanced budget with higher taxes. But then 50% of conservative voters also think the federal budget can be balanced without a tax increase. Sixty-one percent (61%) of liberals say that’s impossible.

Ah, ha! Apparently my choice is in the mix, albeit hidden – what do you supposed those 50% who think the federal budget can be balanced without a tax increase mean?

So let’s recast the findings – 50% of “conservatives” want tax cuts and can live with deficits, 50% of “conservatives” say a blanced budget can be done with spending cuts and 61% of “liberals” believe the only way to balance the budget is to increase taxes (apparently eschewing any spending cuts).

Fair recap?

Now here’s the shocker for you (ok, sarcasm again):

Sixty-two percent (62%) of the Political Class prefer a balanced budget with higher taxes, compared to just 26% of Mainstream voters. Forty-six percent (46%) of Mainstream voters would rather see a budget deficit with tax cuts.

Those in the Political Class are twice as likely as Mainstream voters – 70% to 35% – to believe it is not possible to balance the federal budget without raising taxes.

This is a clever way Rasmussen has of letting us know what our political betters think about those questions vs. what you the mainstream voters think (Proles! When will you wise up?).

So what this portion of the poll tells us is if the “Political Class” ever actually gets serious about debt and deficit reduction, you can throw the “cut spending” mantra right out the window (along with tax cuts) and bend over while grabbing your wallet.  At the rate they’re spending right now though, “serious about the deficit” is lightyears away from being considered.  Lip service, however, will be extravagent, since it’s politically cheap.

But it is, as usual, instructive to see how out of touch the “Political Class” is with it’s voters. 

And speaking of our policial masters and referencing the story about Joe Biden below, here’s the public’s answer to Bidenomics:

Fifty-three percent (53%) of voters believe decreasing the level of government spending will help the U.S. economy. Sixty-one percent (61%) say cutting taxes will boost the economy, the highest level of support since May.

What are the administion’s plans?  Increased government spending and higher taxes, of course.  If you want to see the “deficit of trust” Obama spoke about in the SOTU, read through the entire poll results.  It tells the story of the rise of the Tea Parties with percentages.

And we’re suposed to be the ‘ungovernable’ ones?

~McQ

“We will continue to be the most significant and dominant influence in the world as long as our economy is strong, growing and responsive to 21st-century needs. And they relate to education, they relate to energy, and they relate to health care.”

On he went: “Give me a break. So many people have bet on our demise that it absolutely drives me crazy. . . . There’s sort of an attitude that is both politically directed by our Republican friends but also believed by a fair number of people that we just can’t make this transition in the 21st century.

“I want to tell you something, because if we cede the ground to those who suggest that — I don’t mean foreigners, I mean domestic critics — that somehow, we are destined to fulfill [historian Paul] Kennedy’s prophecy that we are going to be a great nation that has failed because we lost control of our economy and overextended, then we might as well throw it in now, for God’s sake. I mean it’s ridiculous.”

“We will continue to be the most significant and dominant influence in the world as long as our economy is strong, growing and responsive to 21st-century needs. And they relate to education, they relate to energy, and they relate to health care.”

Read the highlighted paragraph carefully. What is Joe Biden equating a strong economy with? “Education, energy and health care”.

What is he really saying?

That increasing government intervention is the answer to a strong economy.  That the answer lies in education (reform), energy (cap-and-trade) and health care (reform).  IOW, unlike in any previous era, Joe Biden is claiming government is the key to building wealth and economic prosperity.  Not one mention in his clueless tirade about markets, economic freedom, entrepreneurship or business.  None.  In Joe Biden’s world, economic strength seems to depend solely on government.  The fact that the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries of United States history show him up for the windbag he is, apparently doesn’t phase him.  Or Dionne either, for that matter.  It is pure liberal economic cluelessness crossed with Joe Biden’s usual verbal flatulence.  Dionne apparently buys into it.

In fact Dionne goes on to say:

Beneath the predictable back-and-forth between Obama and his Republican adversaries over government spending lies a substantively important difference over how the United States can maintain its global leadership.

[...]

For Republicans, American power is rooted largely in military might and showing a tough and resolute face to the world. They would rely on tax cuts as the one and only spur to economic growth.

Obama, Biden and the Democrats, on the other hand, believe that American power depends ultimately on the American economy, and that government has an essential role to play in fostering the next generation of growth.

Republicans believe that “American power is rooted largely in military might?”

Really!? 

So all those charges of “friends to big business” and “the party of business” were  just so much hot air – that it’s always been about “military power” and nothing else? How purposefully tendentious does one have to be to live in Washington, cover politics for a living and write something like that? 

And then to claim that the GOP’s “one and only spur to economic growth” is the tax cut is absolutely stunning.  You have to wonder if alcohol or weed (or both) were present and in use when this was being written (and I’d have to wonder about those 3 layers of editors as well).  If they can’t use that as an excuse I’m at a loss to explain the sheer cluelessness of such a statement.

Jennifer Rubin at Commentary jumped on this as well:

Republicans don’t care about economic growth? Just military might? Hard to see where he gets that, considering that the post-Reagan conservative movement and the Republican party have been devoted to market capitalism. Indeed, the slur on Republicans has been that all they cared about was wealth creation. Oh, but they are just interested in “tax cuts.” Well, that and free trade, modest regulation, legal reform, and other conditions that spur economic growth, investment, and wealth creation.

If Dionne really believes what he wrote he has no business writing political opinion columns for anyone, much less the Washington Post.  That’s the most ill informed sentence I’ve seen in some time.  And his sentence touting Obama, Biden and the Democrat’s belief that the economy is what America’s power depends on is refuted by Biden’s own words.  Biden is saying the economy depends on government.  Therefore “America’s power” depends on government’s management of the economy – not the economy itself.  When he claims it all depends on “education, energy and health care”, he’s parroting the Democrats agenda for more government intervention, regulation and intrusion.  If you don’t believe that, Rubin provides the proof:

Dionne considers this all trivial or dim because he and liberals are convinced that government creates wealth, that public spending creates jobs, and that expansion of the public sector is the way to a brighter future. In fact, he congratulates the president for cheering on the competition in statism with other powers. In the State of the Union, Dionne recalls, the president vowed that no nation would get the jump on us when it comes to government programs. (”Meanwhile, China is not waiting to revamp its economy. Germany is not waiting. India is not waiting. These nations aren’t standing still. These nations aren’t playing for second place. They’re putting more emphasis on math and science. They’re rebuilding their infrastructure. They’re making serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs.”)

That’s right, in the SOTU, Obama stressed precisely what Biden is saying and Dionne is parroting.  China – of all places – was first on Obama’s list of nations to apparently emulate.  And not in the sense you’d like to believe.  He didn’t say China’s entrepreneurs are turning that economy around.  He’s talking about government.  The government of  China, the government of Germany, the government of India – they are the purported engines of economic recovery and wealth creation.

Is it any surprise then to find that he, Biden and liberals like Dionne are of the opinion that more government and more government spending is the path to economic success?  A former community organizer, a professional politician and professional pundit all claiming that the laws of economics are null and void and that the path to proseperity is through bigger and more expensive government?  All we need now is Hugo Chavez to add some real intellectual economic heft to that group [/sarcasm].

All the more reason to be thankful the supermajority in the Senate will be history at 5pm today.  The “party of no” has its work cut out for it.

~McQ

President Barack Obama is spending $2.1 million to help Suntech Power Holdings Co. build a solar- panel plant in Arizona. It will hire 70 Americans to assemble components made by Suntech’s 11,000 Chinese workers.

So it’s not really a “solar-panel plant”, it’s a “solar-panel assembly plant”. Are those “green jobs?” How so? They don’t make the parts. It’s not their technology. To me it’s not much different than assembling an air conditioner. Or a car. It’s not a manufacturing job, it’s an assembly job, and it is no more “green” than assembling an auto-winding watch (I mean, there’s no battery in the watch, so that makes it a “green job” right?).

And at $30,000 a job (subsidy), it’s clear how government efficiently and carefully spends your money and should be trusted with more.

Just to make sure I’ve got this – we’re spending 30K per job subsidizing a Chinese manufacturer’s assembly plant in the US? Have I got that straight? All so a) a claim can be made that jobs were “created” and b) that the created jobs were “green jobs”.

Laughing and derision optional but highly recommended at this point. Keep in mind though that the government’s answer to making “real” green jobs available in America is cap-and-trade (yeah, I know that’s counter-intuitive, but only if you live outside the beltway). Don’t believe me? Read the rest of the article.

~McQ

~McQ

Of course I’m talking about Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the man directly responsible for ensuring the scientific credibility of that report. As we’re learning it has as much scientific credibility as an Al Gore movie.

There are now calls for him to step down as the chair of that panel. The latest has come from John Sauven, director of Greenpeace UK , who says Pachauri should have acted to correct the record immediately after learning that the Himalayan glacier claim contained in the IPCC report had been refuted – even if its correction would have caused embarrassment in Copenhagen.

But of course he didn’t – which brings us to the “what did he know and when did he know it” question.

A journalist working for Science had told Dr Pachauri several times late last year that glaciologists had refuted the IPCC claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. Dr Pachauri refused to address the problem, saying: “I don’t have anything to add on glaciers.” He suggested that the error would not be corrected until 2013 or 2014, when the IPCC next reported.

The IPCC issued a correction and apology on January 20, three days after the error had made global headlines. Mr Sauven said: “Mistakes will always be made but it’s how you handle those mistakes which affects the credibility of the institution. Pachauri should have put his hand up and said ‘we made a mistake’. It’s in these situations that your character and judgment is tested. Do you make the right judgment call? He clearly didn’t.”

Sauven’s absolutely correct in as far as his assertion goes. But this wasn’t a mistake as Sauven claims. At the point Pachauri learned this claim was untrue and chose not to reveal that, it became fraud. Additionally, a “mistake” is something altogether different than the deliberate inclusion of data which has no basis in scientific fact. Pachauri and those on the panel who included this report knew it had no accepted research to back it and that it had not been peer reviewed. And, of course, the glaciers aren’t the only such problem that’s been found in the IPCC report. We now know the Amazon rain forest claim in the report has been refuted as well and have learned that it’s basis was a paper by the WWF on logging – not global warming – destroying up to 40% of the area.

Sauven’s real concern here is to attempt to save the scientific credibility of both the report and the panel. It’s not going to happen. It is becoming common knowledge that the base data used by the panel to formulate its conclusions are, at best, questionable (CRU). And now we have two examples of decidedly unscientific work being included with the implicit claim that it was researched, peer reviewed and the findings conclusive. They were not. How much more remains to be found that further make the report a scientific laughing stock

But while Sauven’s attempt may not bear the fruit he’d like, it would be nice, just once, to see some public official held accountable for the mess he or she has made. But then, we’re talking about the UN here – the same organization which recently shut down it’s own internal ethics and corruption organization because it was finding too many problems in both areas. Pachauri is probably safe to continue in his position for as long as he desires.

Dr Pachauri did not return calls yesterday but he told Indian television at the weekend that he believed attacks on him were being orchestrated by companies facing lower profits because of actions against climate change recommended by the IPCC.He added: “My credibility has been established because I was re-elected chairman in 2008 by all the countries of the world. They must have been satisfied with what I did in terms of the fourth assessment report [published in 2007] because they have given me the mandate of completing the fifth assessment report [to be released over 2013 and 2014] which I intend doing.”

Of course, his re-election took place well before the revelations about glaciers and rainforests (and while he can’t be held responsible for the temperature fiasco, before that as well). If he remains in his position and produces the next edition of the report, it’s scientific credibility will immediately be called into question before the first paragraph is read.

If the UN wants to have its next attempt at cobbling together a narrative useful for demanding the redistribution of global wealth outlining the problems of man-made global warming, it had best can Pachauri.

~McQ

The US debt is on track to hit a congressionally proposed debt ceiling of 14.3 trillion dollars by the end of February, the Treasury said Wednesday, a day ahead of a key vote to raise it to that level.

“Based on current projections, Treasury expects to reach the debt ceiling as early as the end of February. However, the government’s cash flows are volatile, making it difficult to forecast a precise date,” the Treasury said in a statement.

This isn’t the old debt ceiling of $12.374 trillion. Nope, this is the new one that the Senate approved (and still awaits House approval) that adds $1.9 trillion to the ceiling. By the end of February they’ll apparently have spent another $2 trillion or so. In case you’re wondering, that proposed debt ceiling finally puts our total debt at 100+% of our GDP. We finally owe more than we make.

And yes, both political parties have added to this – but none like the present one.

None.

Guess what – with the “jobs bill” in the wings, they’re going to want to raise that ceiling again since we’re borrowing $0.42 cents for every dollar spent by government.

And they wonder why there are tea parties and the natives seem restless, angry and “ungovernable”.

UPDATE: Apparently AFP got the story wrong.  AP says:

The Treasury Department said Wednesday it expects to hit the government’s debt ceiling by the end of February, putting pressure on Congress to raise the limit from its current level of $12.4 trillion.

Still not good at all, but not at all what the AFP claimed. So to quote SNL’s Emily Litella – “nevermind” -well, until they finally do spend to the new limit which most likely won’t be that far in the future (see upcoming “jobs bill” or “health care reform” if they manage to sneak that through – your choice).

HT: Doug Mataconis for the heads up.

~McQ

Fox News had its best January in the history of the network, and was the only cable news network to grow year-to-year.

FNC also had the top 13 programs on cable news in total viewers for the fifth month in a row, and the top 13 programs in the A25-54 demographic for the first time in more than five years.

• FNC grew in double digits in both total viewers and the A25-54 demographic from January 2009. In prime time, it was up 22% in total viewers and 51% in the demo[graphic]. CNN was down 34% and 37% and MSNBC down 26% and 38%. In total day, FNC was up 16% and 28%. CNN was down 34% and 41% and MSNBC down 28% and 39%. Last January all networks performed while with the Inauguration coverage. This month, the big political event was Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts, which FNC dominated in the ratings.

Fox News Channel has been a target of a concerted campaign by the White House to discredit it for a year. How well does that strategy seem to be working?

If, as the left likes to claim, FNC is simply a mouthpiece for the Republican party, what do these numbers tell us?

If, as the right contends, MSNBC is a shill for the left, what do its numbers tell us?

Why does FNC dominate the all important 25-54 demographic?

Last – do these numbers really portend anything of political significance, or does FNC just do a more entertaining (and dare I say it, more “fair and balanced”) job of presenting news and opinion?

~McQ

…I’m putting the finishing touches on my new book, American Taliban, which catalogues the ways in which modern-day conservatives share the same agenda as radical Jihadists in the Islamic world. But I found myself making certain claims about Republicans that I didn’t know if they could be backed up. So I thought, “why don’t we ask them directly?” And so, this massive poll, by non-partisan independent pollster Research 2000 of over 2,000 self-identified Republicans, was born.

The results are nothing short of startling.

Those startling results? Well, leave it to Steve Benen, even more clueless than Kos, to give us the “startling results” that “catalogues” (sic) “modern day conservatives” (notice the interchangability of words “conservative” and “republican”) as “shar[ing] the same agenda as radical Jihadists in the Islamic world” (notice too the rather loony premise of all “conservatives” and “republicans” being driven by radical religious beliefs).

The findings? Benen distills those most useful to the “Republicans are nutters” left (poll results here):

A plurality of rank-and-file Republicans wants to see President Obama impeached. More than a third of self-identified Republicans believe he wasn’t born in the United States. A 63% majority is convinced the president is a socialist, about a fourth believe he wants terrorists to be successful, and about a third think Obama is a racist who hates white people.

Now as I recall, the majority of the left not only wanted Bush impeached, they wanted him frog-marched before a court and tried as a “war criminal”. Most Democrats (I’m borrowing the broad brush that these two are using) believed Bush had been AWOL from his military duty and had stolen the 2000 election. A good plurality of Democrats thought (and still think) 9/11 was an inside job. And it goes without saying that a vast majority of them where convinced Bush was a tyrant, a “Nazi” and a significant number of them thought he’d declare a “national emergency” near the end of his 2nd term in order hold onto power.

And a majority of them wanted Bush to fail in Iraq and actively worked against that war – which to most people would handily translate into “they wanted the terrorists to be successful”. Racism, of course, has been a charge the left slings with impunity whenever it has nothing real to complain about. A third of Republicans think Obama’s a racist? Well if we want to play that game, I’m sure it wouldn’t be at all difficult to find a third of Democrats who think George Bush is a homophobe that hates gay people.

Does that make the Democratic party “crazy”?

Benen continues:

Nearly a third of Republicans think contraceptive use should be outlawed.

And over two thirds don’t. But at least a third of Democrats think that abortion should be allowed in every possible situation without exception and enshrined in law too boot. So both sides want laws that the government really has no business making – what’s new?

More than three-quarters of Republicans want public schools to teach children that the book of Genesis “explains how God created the world.”

As opposed to a good majority of Democrats who already have their religion of environmentalism being taught in public schools and the have completely bought into the religious zealotry of man-made global warming even while the myth crumbles around them. Gaia is their god, Al Gore is their high priest and man is the sinner.

A third of Southern Republicans want to see their state secede from the union.

This is my favorite “startling” find (the result for “all” was 58% no/23% yes). Perfectly insignificant (a third of “Southern” Republicans), however the implied stereotype was just too useful to ignore (just as were all the others). Let me translate – “Southern” is a code word for “redneck racist religious zealots”. Thus the broad tarring of an entire region is accomplished and they can safely ignore a place they can never have electorally.

Of course, the secession claim is no different than the constant threats we heard from liberals that they’d leave the country if George Bush won the presidency. They didn’t, but I can’t imagine the usefulness of the Kos poll question that would have determined “one third of Hollywood liberals would leave the country if a Republican won the presidency” except to try cast the left in a poor light.

And that’s the point, of course. To demonize. Had Benen (and most of the left) not been so focused on trying to make the Republicans seem “crazy”, he could have said “significant majorities said they didn’t want to secede, thought openly gay men and women should be allowed to serve in the military, teach in schools and be allowed to marry and receive federal benefits. They believe sex education should be taught in schools and that marriages are equal partnerships. They don’t believe the “pill” is “abortion” but do believe that abortion is murder and they support the death penalty. They also overwhelmingly believe that women have the right to work outside the home and, as a group, are overwhelmingly Christian.”

But if Kos and Benen had said that, then they’d be hard pressed to use these results to claim Republicans are the “American Taliban” wouldn’t they?  Because everyone knows that the Taliban are a bunch of gay and women’s rights supporting fellows, don’t they?

As I read the poll, it doesn’t at all support the contention clear in the title of Kos’s book.  In fact, his title is hyperbole to the highest degree possible.  I also find it interesting that he wrote the book  based on stereotypes he’d developed and then wondered if what he wrote was true. Now, given this poll, he’s trying to try to make the results fit the premise.  His problem, however, is they don’t fit at all, if, in fact, his intent is to prove the premise of the title (i.e. Republicans = Taliban).  Square peg, round hole.

Result? Epic fail.

Given that, I’d say the book is a definite miss, nothing more than a poorly researched political pot boiler and most likely won’t be showing up on the reading list of many thinking people.  Of course that means it will get glowing reviews from the likes of Benen and other lefty blogs.  But then, that’s not unexpected at all, and we certainly don’t need a poll to know that will happen, do we?

~McQ

Again, the Obama administration has managed to PO our allies. This time, the entire EU:

President Obama’s decision to skip a United States-European Union summit meeting scheduled for Madrid in May has predictably upset European officials, who suggested on Tuesday that the summit itself will now be postponed, possibly to the autumn.

In addition to the palpable sense of insult among European officials, there was a growing concern that Europe is being taken for granted and losing importance in American eyes compared to the rise of a newly truculent China.

Jetting off to Europe to watch the UN’s global warming initiative fail is ok. And so is making an unscheduled trip to pitch the Olympics for Chicago.

But a US-EU summit? Phaa … it wasn’t even important enough to put on the schedule:

The White House explained the decision as a matter of scheduling, insisting that the May visit to Europe was never on the president’s agenda, so it could not be said to have been canceled.

Well there you go.

Speaking for Mr. Obama, Mr. Gordon told journalists in Washington on Monday that the trip to Spain “was never on his agenda.” The president had “traveled more to Europe in his first year probably than any president has ever done in the past, and he looks forward to continuing his engagement bilaterally with European allies and directly with the European Union.”

But that doesn’t include the US-EU Summit, which for some reason, the Europeans see as a very important.

The Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who is scheduled to arrive in Washington this week on a visit, was described as angry and embarrassed, and European officials said there was a set of high-level diplomatic exchanges overnight.

And, of course, with a PO’d Spanish PM, one of the goals of the administration is surely to be helped along:

But a senior American official said that Mr. Gordon and Mr. Burns emphasized to Spanish officials, when the summit was raised, that they “were not in a position to commit to one.” In fact, the official said, the Obama Administration has been “pursuing and getting a better relationship with Spain and the new E.U.,” with Mr. Zapatero visiting Washington twice.

Ummm … sure seems like it, doesn’t it?

~McQ

Virginia’s Democratic-controlled state Senate passed measures Monday that would make it illegal to require individuals to purchase health insurance, a direct challenge to the party’s efforts in Washington to reform health care.

Let’s just say that “direct challenge” seems to be an understatement here. I was expected that the lower house, the GOP controlled House of Delegates, would pass such a bill, but not the Democratically controlled Senate:

Each of three similar bills that passed the state Senate on Monday would run counter to legislation passed by both chambers of Congress, which would require all individuals to purchase health care.

The bills were also expected to be approved by the GOP-controlled House of Delegates. Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) said he will review the bills but supports their intent.

What legal power this would have if such a mandate was passed by Congress is anyone’s guess, but it sure does set up an “interested party” for a law suit doesn’t it?

And, as I implied in the opening, VA isn’t the only state making such moves:

Measures prompted by the Washington debate are pending in at least 29 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

VA’s argument is a constitutional one – backers of the bill claim that Congress does not have the constitutional authority to require anyone buy insurance. This bill, if signed into law, puts VA in the position to challenge any such law on those grounds should Congress pass one.

And that is the fate, I believe, of any such reform that Congress tries to pass – lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit. And frankly I’m glad to see states trying to reassert their rights in this supposedly federal system. That is another great way to begin reigning in the national government.

Of course most of this is driven by politics and the desire of pols to keep their jobs. Any guess as to what is getting the credit?

The bills, a top priority of Virginia’s “tea party” movement, were approved 23 to 17 as five Democrats who represent swing areas of the state joined all 18 Republicans in the chamber in backing the legislation.

Yeah, baby!

For Congressional Democrats, it’s another warning shot right across the bow.  I have to wonder how many it will take to finally get their attention and have them scuttle that health care reform bill monstrosity on their own?

~McQ

But Andrew Bolt has the bigger story that is strarting to finally emerge. That is how complicit the media – to include the Guardian – have been in promoting the alarmist screed over the years.

The only real things that’s changed now is the media’s willingness to see the fraud and fiddling that was always part of the great global warming scam. To finally see the fraud and fiddling that bloggers have written about for years.

Indeed. Now that there’s blood in the water, they’re interested (well at least the UK media is) in the story and the fraud. But:

For nearly three years, mathematician Douglas Keenan has campaigned to get the University of East Anglia, the University of Albany, the IPCC and the media to accept that a key piece of evidence behind the IPCC’s claims that the world was warming was based on a study that was wrong, if not outright fraudulent. Keenan described not just the tricking up of results to hide the urban heat island effect, but the disgraceful efforts by climate scientists and University of Albany administrators to hush up the scandal.

And, for three years Keenan was ignored by the media which showed very little skepticism when it came to alarmist claims.  Instead, they kept promoting the alarmist agenda until it could no longer be supported and only then, when confronted by factual evidence that couldn’t be waved away, did they finally decide to look into the growing scandal.

But now there’s a great change. There is now a race on to uncover the next big IPCC scandal, and I doubt the great climate change scare can survive. The papers will, of course, take the credit.

Well, they’ll certainly try. But there are years of blog archives which are available to point out where the credit really goes for helping to expose one of the most massive “scientific” frauds ever perpetrated. And it isn’t “the papers”.

~McQ

—Raise the top two income tax rates for individuals, from 33 percent and 35 percent, to 36 percent and 39.6 percent, respectively. Unless Congress intervenes, those rates will rise next Jan. 1 when Bush’s tax cuts expire. That government would reap $365 billion over the next decade.

—Limit the itemized tax deductions high earners can claim for charitable donations, mortgage interest and state and local taxes, raising about $210 billion for the next decade.

—Increase the top capital gains tax rate from 15 percent to 20 percent for families making more than $250,000 a year and individuals making more than $200,000. The proposal would raise about $105 billion.

Of course we’re back to the old “static” analysis model here. These numbers hold if none of those effected do anything to protect their earnings and assets (or the market doesn’t research and find loopholes which allow such protection of assets) over the next decade.

So the chance of this revenue stream remaining intact and at the level suggested here is highly unlikely if you know anything about human nature and how markets work. Look at the UK for instance where the same sort of nonsense is happening:

Mike Warburton, senior tax adviser at Grant Thornton, one of Britain’s biggest accounting firms, said that clients were pursuing four main ways to avoid paying half their salary in tax: bumping up this year’s pay; storing up pay in their firm to be drawn down at a later date; leaving the country; or choosing to pay it to charity rather than the taxman.

“People are taking obvious avoidance measures because they are not prepared to pay 50 per cent tax,” Mr Warburton said.

It is unlikely they’ll be any more “prepared” to do so here than there.

Also unlikely are cuts in spending which are really what are needed. Once Congress sees this revenue stream established, even for a year – heck, even hypothetically – they’re likely to spend what is promised in the outlying years and use it in their PAYGO justifications.

Then there’s the aspect of his proposals which use the tax code to punish businesses or encourage them to not do business here at the level at which they are now engaged:

—Change the way profits made by investment fund managers are taxed, raising an additional $24 billion over the next decade.

—Impose a “financial crisis responsibility fee” on large financial institutions, raising $90 billion over the next decade.

—Restrict the ability of international companies to defer taxes on profits made overseas, raising about $26 billion over the next decade.

—Impose a total of about $39 billion in tax increases on oil, gas and coal companies over the next decade.

The tax on oil, gas and coal will simply raise the price at the retail level for all consumers, giving lie to the Obama promise that taxes won’t go up “one dime” for 95% of Americans. Additionally, the tax on the energy companies, passed on to consumers, will affect the poor much more than others. There are other ways to extract that pound of flesh than through income taxes and the administration knows that only too well, whether or not Obama supporters want to admit it or not.

And both he and they will have difficulty making that claim at all if this remains in the budget:

According to a report by The Hill President Barack Obama is seeking to end a middle-class tax break he once said would be permanent.

The $3.8 trillion budget request rolled out by the White House on Monday would renew the Making Work Pay tax credit for fiscal 2011, but then would have it sunset

Yes, that’s right, instead of making that middle class tax cut permanent as he promised, he’s proposing it “sunset” (i.e. go away) after FY 2011 (just before the 2012 election and the tax prep season so it won’t effect voters till after the election).

All in all, taxes would increase $1.1 trillion (again, assuming no person or no business effected does anything to avoid these taxes) over a decade.

Yes, that’s a lot of money – but then we’re running a deficit this year of $1.6 trillion, of which 40 cents of every dollar spent is borrowed. So while $1.1 trillion seems enormous, it’s really a drop in the ocean when looking at the promised spending over the next decade.

So listen carefully to soothing promises of fiscal restraint and concern about the deficit (and debt) in the coming weeks as the administration and Congressional Democrats give lip service to PAYGO and spending restraint. Then review this chart. The chart is their plan. If you can find any spending restraint or real deficit or debt reduction in there, please point it out. This budget and the outlying budgets are a plan for fiscal ruin. We now, for the first time, owe more than our entire GDP is worth, and the Obama administration apparently plans to see if it can double that in the shortest time possible. Any doubts about where this is headed?

And: are you beginning to understand what the Tea Parties are about yet?

~McQ

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams is set to undergo heart surgery this week in the United States.

CBC News confirmed Monday that Williams, 59, left the province earlier in the day and will have surgery later in the week.

The premier’s office provided few details, beyond confirming that he would have heart surgery and saying that it was not necessarily a routine procedure.

So, nobody can do it in St. Johns or Mt. Pearl?  OK, maybe not.  I mean, it’s Newfoundland, for Cripes sake!  But, still, no room at a Halifax or or Moncton hospital, eh?  Nobody qualified to perform the procedure in Quebec, Montreal, Ottowa or Toronto?

How is it that the Canadian health care system is just fine for all the little people, but when a provincial premier hears the thump of mortality in his chest, it’s off to Cedars-Sinai,  Sloan-Kettering, or Mayo?

‘S’funny how that works, huh?

But don’t worry.  When we get our free health care down here in the US, everything will be tiddly.