This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Economy

  • Dropping all of the balls

    While the Obama Administration focuses on what it considers important, namely the take over of health care, balls are dropping every where else. They’ve proved themselves to be a Carter-esque paper tiger with Russia when they disappointed Eastern Europe by capitulating to Putin’s pressure to stop building the missile shield to protect our allies.

    Putting pressure on New York’s accidental governor to withdraw from next year’s race has only made David Paterson dig in for a tough battle against his own party.

    The Obama Administration has allowed Hillary Clinton to fight their battles in Honduras, according to Wall Street Journal’s Mary O’Grady, and fighting against the Constitutional law of Honduras has proved to be a fool’s errand.

    General Stanley McChrystal has asked for more troops in Afghanistan which has opened an opportunity for cash-starved anti-war groups who are planning an assault on the Obama war policy next week.

    Andrew Breitbart is promising that even more videos are coming from the O’Keefe/Giles team against the Obama allies in ACORN.

    Obviously, actual leadership is harder than campaigning, but focusing on taking over the economy isn’t so important as letting shallow reasoning govern the nation isn’t working. It seems that Obama’s foreign policy seems to be “do the opposite of Bush” and it doesn’t seem to be us any good.

  • Who will get the oil in the Gulf?

    The Washington Examiner editorial board writes this morning that it’s going to get a little crowded off our shores in the Gulf of Mexico with oil platforms – unfortunately, none of those platforms will be American;

    Brazil, China, India, Norway, Spain and Russia have all signed agreements with Cuba and the Bahamas to initiate exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico within the next two years. So the prospect of seeing Russian oil rigs 45 miles off the Florida Keys — where American oil companies are now forbidden to drill — is a very real possibility.

    The other day I wrote about the Obama Administration underwriting Brazilian oil drilling off of their coast and ours. Now we face the prospect of watching the money and jobs that could be part of our economy floating a few miles off our own shores – financed by our own government (read that: our own earnings confiscated by the government).

    As I wrote the other day, there’s a very strong possibility that developing our own natural resources could be the engine that provides the jobs as well as making us energy independent for the next few decades. There hasn’t been a refinery built in the last 30 years (30 years ago last month, Jimmy Carter promised that we’d build a refinery and a pipeline every time we needed one). Decades worth of oil and jobs lay fallow in Alaska.

    And who do you have more confidence in to drill clean and protect the environment – China, Russia, Cuba or the US? Apparently, someone is going to drill no matter what we do – shouldn’t it be us?

  • 60,000 resign from AARP

    I’ve hated AARP as long as I can remember because they’ve so blatantly opposed to everything that has stood in their way to soak seniors out of their savings. They’ve sold crappy insurance and crappy annuities under the guise of a special club for seniors. They were nothing more than an insurance brokerage.

    Despite their attempts to refute the president’s announcement that AARP supported his health care proposals last week, Americans knew from their past behavior, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. Now they’re voting with their feet, according to CBS News;

    CBS News has learned that up to 60,000 people have cancelled their AARP memberships since July 1, angered over the group’s position on health care.

    Elaine Guardiani has been with AARP for 14 years, and said, “I’m extremely disappointed in AARP.”

    Retired nurse Dale Anderson has 12 years with AARP and said, “I don’t wanna be connected with AARP.”

    Many are switching to the American Seniors Association, a group that calls itself the conservative alternative as CBS News Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.

    It was inevitable. By spending a little bit of time doing the research, you can buy better insurance and annuities than AARP offers and probably save yourself some money in the bargain. They’ve tried to instill fear in their members when the Bush Social Security plan might have saved it for a few more years. They used fear to prevent younger Americans from being able to invest part of their Social Security contributions and have a shot at having real returns and a real income in their retirements.

    I hope AARP dies a quick yet painful death.

  • US to underwrite off-shore drilling

    I’m sure you remember the fight last year over extending off-shore drilling rights to wean ourselves off of foreign oil. Well, the Obama Administration has decided that they’re going to make loans to a large company so that they can drill for oil off the coast – in Brazil. From the Wall Street Journal;

    The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil’s Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.

    The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a “preliminary commitment” letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas.

    I’ve written for years that the key to our own economic well-being as well as our foreign policy independence is finding and processing our own energy resources – so what can the Obama Administration be thinking by helping to develop foreign sources? Millions of jobs would be created if we invested in the construction of refineries and oil fields, instead we continue to be slaves to foreign countries who hold our future in their hands, and we are forced to crawl to tinpot dictators.

    Yeah, I blame Republicans, too.

  • Health care struggling

    So the President thought he could convince us to stop thinking about numbers last night. Didn’t work. JammieWearingFool recounts the conversation Senator Charles Grassley had with a Democrat colleague in which the colleague related the President telling the Blue Dog Democrats “You’re going to destroy my presidency.”

    Karl Rove, In the Wall Street Journal “ObamaCare in Trouble“;

    The polls are crumbling because of a flood of bad news about Mr. Obama’s health-care proposals. One batch of such news came from a July 17 study by the Lewin Group that was commissioned by the Heritage Foundation. It projects that if the House bill becomes law, 83.4 million people—nearly half of those with private coverage—will lose private insurance as employers drop their plans. Mr. Obama’s promise that you can keep your plan is being left on the cutting room floor with nary a peep from the president.

    Another batch of bad news came this week as Democratic governors from Colorado, Tennessee, New Mexico and Washington joined GOP colleagues at the National Governors Association summer meeting to blast the administration for plans to shift millions of families into Medicaid. That could stick states with $440 billion in new costs over the next decade.

    Even the Associated Press can’t put a happy face sticker on the White House these days;

    The sense of bipartisanship the president infused into the effort in March has been dissipated; lawmakers may never have taken it seriously. And the clear, confident message of last year’s presidential campaign has turned into confusing policy options and messy politics, a standoff on Capitol Hill over how to expand and improve health coverage — and somehow pay for it.

    It’s all recasting Obama’s image. The cool, crisp candidate who captivated voters last fall has been replaced by a president who is constantly calling for action, with little to show for it and his credibility at stake.

    Democrats are putting on a brave face, noting that in Congress a legislative standstill can quickly shift into high-gear action.

    It’s called biting off more than you can chew. George Bush knew it. he didn’t try to shove massive tax cuts down Congress’ throats, he took it slowly over five years and got everything he wanted. But Obama thought he had some kind of leverage over everyone because everyone around him told him so – that echo chamber effect.

    All of those people who took the fall for his miscalculations during the elections are about to get some more company under the Obama bus.

  • More Carter Culture in the White House

    This morning the Washington Post, eager to rewrite history and trumpet Our Lord, Barack Obama in article they titled “In West Wing: Grueling Schedules, Bleary Eyes“, all they did for me was recall the Carter years;

    All West Wings face fatigue at some point, but the Obama team has had a particularly frenetic start, the result of inheriting the worse economic crisis since the Great Depression and the team’s own seemingly chaotic drive to push an agenda that includes the creation of a new health insurance system, auto bailouts, Middle East peace, nuclear nonproliferation, two wars and education reform.

    Political Washington has long fostered a workaholic culture, the expectation that the rewards of service on the big stage of national government come with 18-hour, on-call days. But even the most hardy of Obama’s staff members are beginning to recognize the toll that the pace is taking.

    We heard the same stories from the Carter Administration. Jimmy Carter and his staff worked endless hours spinning their wheels and coming up with idiot speeches and proposals that they never implemented. I guess it’s hard work trying to change our political system into something it wasn’t designed to be – a support group for morons.

    I also like how the Post blames the Bush Administration for Obama’s dilemma. We’ll probably hear that right up until the 2012 election – that’s why the Justice Department will be focusing on phony torture orders and phony “secret programs” just to keep the Evil Bush Administration (TM) in our collective consciousness as the culprit of all of our woes.

    See, here’s some advice for the Obama Administration if they want to get some rest – stop what you’re doing. You’re working too hard AGAINST the American people which is why you’re meeting stiff resistance for your idiot proposals. Try focusing on ONE thing at a time instead of trying to cram 100 years of European-style liberalism down our throats in one big gulp.

    Oh, and Washington Post, we’re on to you – you stop, too.

  • July 4th Tea Party news

    The American Power Blog emails a link to Donald Douglas’ coverage of many Tea Parties. Michelle Malkin live blogged from Dallas.

    Gateway Pundit from St Louis’ Tea Party. GP also reports that George W Bush got six standing O‘s at the Let Freedom Ring festival in Oklahoma yesterday.

    Our buddy, Skye, has coverage of the Independence Day Tea party in Philly yesterday at Midnight Blue.

    Nice Deb covers Kansas City’s Tea party. Part 1 and Part2.

    Maggie’s Farm reports from San Diego. The Lonely Conservative from my old stomping grounds in Syracuse, NY. Urban Grounds in Austin, TX.

    The Tea Party in Bozeman, MT was preceded by the Gay Loggers for Jesus. Coos Bay, Oregon drew a few hundred to their Tea Party. A few hundred also gathered in Lincoln, NE.

    There was a Tea Party in Kalamazoo, New York City, Raleigh, Washington DC (twice), Rogers AR, Monticello, AR, Columbia SC, Prince William County, VA, Shrevesport LA, and wherever Mockarena and The Chicks on the Right were (they don’t say).

    If I missed your Tea Party, let me know and I’ll post it.

    ADDED: Central New Jersey sent by Freedom Fighter

    Another from our buddy DanNY at New City, NY.

    Yet another from our buddy Rochester Conservative in Rochester, NY.

  • Spineless foreign policy

    So what happened this weekend? While the US was immersed in the useless-ass Michael Jackson news and doing their best to ignore the fact that we’ll all  be broke by the end of the year paying our new backdoor taxes on our energy needs, the rest of the world continued to turn.

    Did you hear that Iran had seized several British Embassy employees? No, of course not. I think it was nine that were detained by Iranian police for inciting the rallies against the government. Five were released yesterday and four more remain in custody according to CNN;

    British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Sunday protested the arrests, calling them “harassment and intimidation of a kind which is quite unacceptable.”

    Iran’s intelligence minister has blamed Western powers for stirring up protests over its disputed presidential election, singling out Britain and saying the British Embassy in Tehran “played a heavy role in the recent disturbances.”

    North Korea seems to be upset that we’ve moved missile defense assets to Hawaii. They, somehow, think that we’re moving defense systems to attack North Korea – kinda like the Murtha plan to defend the Iraqi government from Guam, I suppose. This from Australian Associated Press;

    “Through the US forces’ clamorous movements, it has been brought to light that the US attempt to launch a pre-emptive strike on our republic has become a brutal fact,” the North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said on Monday.

    The paper also accused the US of deploying nuclear-powered aircraft and atomic-armed submarines in waters near the Korean peninsula, saying the moves prove “the US pre-emptive nuclear war” on the North is imminent.

    The commentary, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, said the North will bolster its nuclear arsenal in self-defence.

    I also wrote yesterday a few times about the removal of Leftist president Manuel Zelaya from his position in Honduras. He awoken early yesterday morning and sent to Costa Rica by the Honduran Army, apparently under the orders of the Honduran Congress and the Supreme Court. The Obama Administration called the act a “coup” while the Honduran Supreme Court claims it was completely legal since the Army was only defending their constitution from a domestic threat.

    Apparently the Obama administration had their fingers in several attempts to remove Zelaya in preceding weeks according to the Washington Times;

    The official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named, said the U.S. Embassy in Honduras was “consistently and almost constantly engaged in the last several weeks working with partners” and that U.S. officials were “in contact with all Honduran institutions, including the military.” However, the military stopped taking the embassy’s calls since the coup attempt, the official said.

    Hmmm, they stopped taking the Obama administration’s calls, huh? Probably because they weren’t being helpful. The OAS, the UN, Chavez’ ALBA members have all condemned the removal of Zelaya from office, but actually, two branches of the Honduran government, the Judicial and Legislative, both arrived at the conclusion that Zelaya was trying to change the government of Honduras, like Chavez changed the Venezuelan government to suit his own selfish purposes. It’s an internal issue.

    The rest of the world has decided that they’re going to let Iran kill it’s own citizens, let North Korea fire off missiles anywhere they want while imprisoning US citizens, but they’re not going to let the Honduran government come to conclusions about the way it’s governed?

    Oh, and Chavez said yesterday that he’s ready to return Zelaya to office with the use of the Venezuelan Army. And the world is hoping he will, apparently.

    I thought Obama was going to change the way the world looked at us. Apparently he did – the world thinks the West are a bunch of pussies now that American foreign policy doesn’t have room to defend the innocent now. This administration is too intent on grinding our economy into the dust to pay attention to the rest of the world.