This is gorgeous:
I’m waiting for Nancy Pelosi to denounce Sheila as yet another example of that Democrat Culture of Corruption. I mean, come on, does it get any worse than stealing from the poor to give to the, well, yourself? I’m sure Nancy will figure some way to assure us all that no Democrat was involved in this even though the Mayor is Democrat, and every member on the city council is Democrat as well.
During Obama’s campaign for the White House, he preached endlessly about bipartisanship. As with the rest of his message of “change”, people, and especially media, bought it hook, line, and sinker:
No one looked at his actions, they simply took his word and ran with it. Now, I’ve seen how DC works for years. Preaching bipartisanship is one thing, making it work another. For all his words, Obama made no effort to reign in Nancy Pelosi. The first thing she did was strip the House Fairness Rules of 1995. This Republican measure gave the minority party a voice in legislation. The minority party didn’t like that too much. It’s about as partisan as you can get. The only intent for doing this was to allow the majority party the ability to basically ram legislation through with little discussion or debate. The response to this power grab by Pelosi has been pretty much as expected. Of the most recent round of votes:
- HR. 11 – Passed 247-171, 15 not voting. 97% of Democrats supporting, 99% of Republicans opposing
- HR. 12 – Passed 256-163, 14 not voting. 98% of Democrats supporting, 95% of Republicans opposing.
- HR. 12 with instructions – Failed 178-240, 14 not voting. 99% of Republicans supporting, 97% of Democrats opposing.
These are a couple of fairly ambiguous laws that really have no serious repercussions on day to day life and are mostly symbolic. The only real symbolism that has come from these votes is that given all the bipartisan rhetoric, Obama hasn’t done squat to reach out to the other side and if anything, has hardened partisan feelings by allowing Pelosi to squelch the minority party’s right to free speech inside the House. Because of Pelosi’s power grab and blatant slap in the face of the minority party, we’re right back where we were before Obama won, if not worse. Obama and Pelosi are going to have to rely solely on their own party’s votes to get anything passed. So much for “change”.
I have blogged several times on the farce that is the NCAA BCS. Now I have an ally:
Now, rather than relying on a bailout or something like that, he just needs to put hellacious pressure on the NCAA. This can be done with committees and investigations into why the NCAA has refused to do the obvious. And, of course, the bully pulpit of the presidency certainly wouldn’t hurt anything. At least he’s talking. And, given the nature of his campaign, when he talks, people do listen. So, keep talking Barack! Get’r done!
That just makes me wonder how much he paid for it. ( February 17, 2009 update: apparently $10,000 )
Burris’s contention is there is nothing in the law that states that a governor can not be tainted in order to appoint a Senator. However, what Burris is ignoring is what the rest of the world thinks about him. His appointment is tainted. He’s therefore tainted. The fact he’s so enthusiastic about being tainted just makes it look like he’s paid to play to me. Calling himself the magic man certainly doesn’t help his image any either.
Now, where it gets real fun for me is how Harry Reid is dealing with all this. At first he absolutely refused to seat anyone Blago appointed. Now, he says there is room to negotiate. In other words, he’s capitulating. Dick Durbin is not. He doesn’t want Burris there at all. However, both Durbin and Reid are more than anxious to get Al Franken seated even though the election is still contested. In simpler terms, Burris is there under a cloud and that’s not good, Franken is there under a cloud and that’s OK. Makes ya gotta wonder what the difference is? I’m sure Jesse Jackson will have something to say if Reid persists to endorse the candidate who only won by getting the recounts he wanted and dismissing the ones he didn’t while blocking the candidate no one voted for.
Meanwhile, best I can tell, Nancy Pelosi has had nothing to say.
People voted for “change” without ever really considering what the “change” was about. Today we got a few examples.
Bill Richardson, under investigation for pay to play politics ( read taking bribes ), was nevertheless nominated to a cabinet position under Obama’s “change”. He withdrew his nomination today. There’s no change when it comes to cronyism.
Leon Panetta, who was the Clinton Chief of Staff, was offered as the director of the CIA. Nevermind the fact he has no national security experience at all. There’s no change when it comes to political gerrymandering. And, regardless of the rhetoric, the only change will obviously be a lesser focus on national security if Obama thinks the Central Intelligence Agency should be run like a civil rights agency.
And finally, Nancy Pelosi is rumored to be stripping the House Fairness rules of 1995 that were enacted to assure all members of Congress, regardless of party, had an opportunity to contribute to the debate and passage of legislation. And, there’s obviously no change in partisanship. If Pelosi pursues this, there is no need at all for Republicans to feel the bi-partisan love Obama preached about. They will be screwed from the get-go. If this does pass, look for things to get real nasty real quick as the Republicans and independents will have absolutely nothing to lose by going after Pelosi’s throat. I would suggest playing over and over Obama’s pledges of bipartisanship contrasted to Pelosi’s actions.
The national stimulus package that was supposed to kick-start the economy is now a $500 tax credit. Where’s the “change” from the last $500 rebate? Did that fix anything? Sure, there’s talk of investing in infrastructure, but that’s all it is so far.
But, I did forget the other change we’re looking at so far, Obama is wanting NASA to ditch one rocket for another to do exactly the same thing.
Before Obama can get anything positive to come out of DC, he’s going to have to reign in Pelosi. She’s going to destroy any good will people have been trying to extend to Obama.
Been reading that Obama is planning on naming Leon Panetta head of the CIA.
A while back I did a series of posts on basically what happened when the security of the United States was wonked to death by people more interested in internal policies than doing what was necessary to protect us. Basically, the root of the problem as I saw it was that lawyers ran the CIA and FBI instead of security people like the military. This wonking led to 9/11 and the Iraq War. Not to fear everyone said, Obama believes in a strong national security. That was said while Obama was signing onto legislation banning cluster bombs. Now, we get the icing on the cake, Obama is a assigning a man who once was the Director of the Office of Civil Rights. Nowhere in his resume, other than a brief stint in the military, do we see anything advocating national security. We do see him advocating civil rights 25 years after the civil rights movements of the 60′s. We do see him doing everything he can to prevent off-shore drilling. We do see him advocating more entitlement programs. I see a lot of things Leon Panetta can be great at. And, I do mean great. But, to put him in charge of the CIA sends a message I am not comfortable with at all. It’s telling me that the policies of Jamie Gorelick and Bill Clinton/Janet Reno are back.
Tell me what you think.
Incoming president Barack Obama stated he wanted a massive economic stimulus package ready for him to sign the second he took office. I pretty much thought this was symbolic at best, naive at worst. Almost immediately the second the word stimulus was mentioned, some conservative bloggers went bonkers.
Take some Maalox before you read this headline from The Hill (via HA headlines):
You’ll have to visit Michelle Malkin’s site to see the cute graphic. She’s not attacking Obama’s stimulus package, she’s attacking Republicans, or perceived conservatives, for even mentioning the idea they may support a stimulus package. Of course, a hundred readers had to jump in and and trash Mitch McConnell for the mere thought of supporting the stimulus.
I’ve got problems with this.
Primarily, we don’t have a clue what the stimulus package is. Now, there are liberal stimulus ideas, and there are conservative ideas. But, the idea of pumping cash into the economy to get it going is not new. And, it’s been proven to work sometimes. The heart of Keynesian economics is twofold:
- a reduction in interest rates.
- Government investment in infrastructure – the injection of income results in more spending in the general economy, which in turn stimulates more production and investment involving still more income and spending and so forth. The initial stimulation starts a cascade of events, whose total increase in economic activity is a multiple of the original investment.
Now, the key here in my opinion is a conservative approach to the stimulus package would be sticking closely to what Keynes originally proposed, investing in infrastructure. The beauty of that is it creates jobs almost immediately. The caveat is it creates jobs in the sector most hurt by the economic downturn, construction. In addition, you’re not bogging down the system for the future. Once the infrastructure item is complete, you can either fund a new one, or, if the economy is back to where you want it to be, not fund another project.
The liberal approach would be to pour money into services. The problem with that is obvious I think. Once you hire someone in the governmnent system, they are there forever. The caveat argued of course you can always stop funding the service. But, we all know how often that happens. Bottom line is once an entitlement is created, it never goes away. It may change names, but it will be there for eternity.
So, there are two ways we can do this. Barack Obama has never been called a fiscal conservative. I’m going to assume he’s going to stay the course he’s pursued his entire political life. People like Michelle Malkin want us to simply cede that decision to Obama. People like myself, and apparently Mitch McConnell, want to have some say-so and hopefully get the Democrats to make the right decision. I’ll worry about elections later, a growing economy means a lot more to me right now.
Additionally, there are the political implications that go a lot broader than pandering to the conservative base.. The Republicans are in a position where they are going to have to oppose a lot of things. Some of that opposition will get ugly. Mitch knows Obama’s stimulus plan will not be ready by his inauguration. It’s just too big, too complicated, and too political. Toss in the Blago ugliness, the Bill Richardson flap, the Rahm Emanuel rumors, now the Burris and Franken Senate issues, and of course the Rick Warren debacle, and I think Mitch is aware that he doesn’t have to be the bad guy right now. Obama’s doing a fine job pinning himself in. If he tried right now, he’d be fighthing a tsunami of media support for Obama. If he waits a couple of months, that tsunami won’t be so big. And, if he’s thinking like me, in six months that tsunami may be heading in the other direction when the average Joe becomes aware Obama is not the savior they painted him as.
