Obama's Reliance On Teleprompters

"While the teleprompter might let Mr. Obama blame someone else whenever the answer turns out to be wrong, we would like to have a president who occasionally comes across as more than a TV anchor reading a script."

       ---Editorial, The Washington Times
          March 10, 2009

The Founding Fathers Would Have Wanted Obama To Fail Too

Byron York has an excellent article in today's DC Examiner that discusses James Madison and the founder's view on the kind of government Obama envisions for America.  They would not have approved:

"In the Federalist Papers, written 221 years ago, Madison addressed the need for a Senate to accompany the more populist House of Representatives. An upper body, he wrote, "may be sometimes necessary as a defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions."

"For the times when a political leader would attempt to capitalize on those errors and delusions, the Founders prescribed the Senate, with its members elected to terms three times the length of those in the House, originally chosen not by the people but by the state legislatures. From Federalist 63:

"There are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind?"

Now is the time for the salutary interference of temperate and respectable citizens, otherwise known as the 41 Republicans in the United States Senate. It is their job to help the president in areas where there is widespread agreement that he should be helped, and hold the line on everything else.

President Obama, his chief of staff, and Hillary Clinton have all now come out and said straight out that they want to use this economic crisis as an "opportunity" to fulfill a wishlist of liberal programs and to remake America into something it isn't. It's not the platform they ran on. It is not what people voted for. But they are doing it because they believe that Obama is popular enough that the people will swallow anything as long as he attaches the words "economic crisis to it."

I think it should be clear to all by now that this president sees economic recovery as a secondary goal to radically changing America. With a war on business, on the free market, on the independence of the American people, Obama is seeking nothing less than a transformation of the United States into something more like a European social democracy than any vision or imagined state our founders thought about so many years ago.

Just because they can do it, they are doing it. A sad reason to throw what America has been out the window.

       ---Rick Moran, American Thinker
          March 10, 2009

Thousands Join Talk show Hosts In Tax Protest
       
FULLERTON - They're revolting. Families with children, bikers, seniors, pirates - by the thousands descended on a Fullerton bar Saturday to join talk show hosts John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou of KFI in protesting tax increases recently approved in Sacramento.  Police estimated that some 8,000 people came to the Slidebar Café in downtown Fullerton to listen to The John &Ken Show.

"I expected a lot and it was way more than I expected," said co-host John Kobylt.  The talk show hosts put forward an ambitious goal for their Tax Revolt 2009 live broadcast that ran for more than three hours.  "The purpose is to vote down Prop 1A on May 19 because it's a two-year tax extension," said Kobylt. "The purpose is to tell people how their Republican legislators lie about their votes. The purpose is to get support to recall Schwarzennegger, (Assemblyman) Anthony Adams, (Assemblyman) Jeff Miller, and everybody else."

Some wore buttons. One man brought a bloody effigy head of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and waved it from the end of a pike, while the crowd joined their hosts in a chant of "Repeal, recall, revolt."

Many in the crowd held up cameras to capture a big hit as VHS cassettes, DVDs, laser discs, an action hero lunch box and other memorabilia from the governor's Hollywood career, were piled up and smashed with a sledgehammer.  Johanna Common, 45, of Fullerton, pushed her way to the front of the crowd to contribute her copy of the Schwarzenegger movie "Total Recall" to the pile.  "I wanted to see it smashed to smithereens," she said.  When all is done, Common plans to get involved in recalling her local representative, Assemblyman Michael Duvall, she said.

Like many others, Kimberly Smith, 29, of Tustin, sported a button showing how much more she'll have to pay in taxes: $1,645.

Capt. Jack Sparrow came by to say the taxes would cost him loot.  "With people losing the money they are losing, I lose too as an entertainer," said the pirate, who goes by Vince Bartolome of Costa Mesa in his downtime. "It sucks for us all."...

Hannah Ross, 6, and her sister, Olivia Ross, 4, of San Diego, used squeeze paint brushes to express a message suggested by their parents: "Stop Generational Theft."  For Stacey Ross, it was her first time bringing her children to a political event.  "I believe children need to learn the First Amendment and their freedom of speech," she said.  Moving forward, Kobylt said there will be other events to come. The talk show hosts discussed participating in future recall efforts.

"For day one, this is fantastic, but this a long road that's going to take months and years," said Kobylt.

       ---Lindsey Baguio, The Orange County Register
          March. 8, 2009

When this starts happening on a big scale all across the nation, just maybe, the politicians will read the 'tea leaves'!  Don O'Nesky

Regressing Toward The Mean
      
As measured by Rasmussen Reports, President Obama's approval rating has been at 56 percent for the last three days. His "approval index"--the difference between those who strongly approve of his performance and those who strongly disapprove-- now stands at + 6, the lowest level so far.

Such poll data a mere six weeks into an administration might normally be deemed irrelevant, and so they may prove to be: they probably tell us very little about what Obama's standing with the public will be by 2012. In the present moment, though, I think they do have significance.

The Democrats are trying to follow a "100 days" strategy reminiscent of Roosevelt, in which they will enact a far-reaching transformation of the American economy at the outset of the Obama administration. This approach is based in part on the calculation that Obama's personal popularity and the reluctance of many to attack him (consider the kerfuffle over the New York Post cartoon about the stimulus bill) will help them to ram through Congress a program that contains radical elements that are not supported by the American people. The evidence suggests, however, that Obama does not have such a powerful influence with voters, and that Republicans should not hesitate to do their utmost to block the Democrats' ambitions or to criticize Obama where appropriate.

       ---John, PowerLine Blog
          March 9, 2009

Earmarks Encourage Spending And That's No Lie

The left is growing frustrated with the success conservatives are having in framing the omnibus spending bill as classic wasteful government spending. Pushing back, the Center for American Progress claims that Cutting Earmarks Doesn't Save Money and Roll Call's Stan Collender writes: "Saying That Cutting Earmarks Will Reduce Spending Is A Lie."  Collender reasons:

"An earmark simply is a congressional decision to allocate part of appropriation for a particular purpose. Eliminating the allocation doesn't reduce the appropriation, it simply leaves the allocation decision to a federal department or agency rather than to Congress."

This statement is true. But conservatives do not claim that earmarks in themselves add to spending totals. As William McGurn explains in the Wall Street Journal:

"What the public does not understand is that the more earmarks there are in a bill, the harder it will be to vote against it. The reason is simple: With every earmark, a congressman or senator gains a personal stake in the passage of a bill he or she might otherwise oppose." Continue reading...

       ---Conn Carroll, The Heritage Foundation
          March 10, 2009 

The High Cost Of Subsidizing Bad Decisions
      
Now that the federal government has decided to bail out homeowners in trouble, with mortgage loans up to $729,000, that raises some questions that ought to be asked but are seldom being asked.  Since the average American never took out a mortgage loan as big as seven hundred grand -- for the very good reason that he could not afford it -- why should he be forced as a taxpayer to subsidize someone else who apparently couldn't afford it either but who got in over his head anyway?

Why should taxpayers who live in apartments, perhaps because they did not feel that they could afford to buy a house, be forced to subsidize other people who could not afford to buy a house but who went ahead and bought one anyway?

We hear a lot of talk in some quarters about how any one of us could be in the same financial trouble that many homeowners are in if we lost our job or had some other misfortune. The pat phrase is that we are all just a few paydays away from being in the same predicament.  Another way of saying the same thing is that some people live high enough on the hog that any of the common misfortunes of life can ruin them...

The same politicians who have been talking about a need for "affordable housing" for years are now suddenly alarmed that home prices are falling. How can housing become more affordable unless prices fall?  The political meaning of "affordable housing" is housing that is made more affordable by politicians intervening to create government subsidies, rent control or other gimmicks for which politicians can take credit.

Affordable housing produced by market forces provides no benefit to politicians and has no attraction for them.  Study after study, not only here but in other countries, shows that the most affordable housing is where there has been the least government interference with the market -- contrary to rhetoric...

Even in an era of much-ballyhooed "change," the government cannot eliminate sadness. What it can do is transfer that sadness from those who made risky and unwise decisions to the taxpayers who had nothing to do with their decisions.  Worse, the subsidizing of bad decisions destroys one of the most effective sources of better decisions -- namely, paying the consequences of bad decisions.

In the wake of the housing debacle in California, more people are buying less-expensive homes, making bigger down payments and staying away from "creative" and risky financing. It is amazing how fast people learn when they are not insulated from the consequences of their decisions.

       ---Thomas Sowell, Nationally Syndicated Columnist
          March 9, 2009

The War Is Over

Federal courts have just surrendered in the war against radical Islam.  The war is over. Our peerless armed forces took Tora Bora and, when we finally let them, Fallujah. But al-Qaeda won in Washington, and that has made all the difference.

The War on Terror has radically altered the compact between the American people and their government by dramatically changing the nature of the U.S. courts. Until this new, unaccountable monster is caged, it will continue to devour our political community's capacity to wage war and to defend itself.

And that caging had better happen soon, because the word "war" in this context refers only to our nation's forcible military response after the 9/11 attacks finally made the atrocities of radical Islam impossible to ignore any longer. Our response did not start the war. That war, radical Islam's jihad against the United States and the West, continues -- and ever more perilously. As we hollow ourselves out by the day, we become a much softer target...

For the D.C. Circuit, however, these standards, though good enough for American citizens accused of crime, are somehow not good enough for alien enemy combatants trying to kill American citizens. The panel found the government's "mere 'certification'" that information was immaterial, and should not be disclosed, to be insufficient. Allowing such a "naked declaration," the judges harrumphed, would turn courts into mere "rubber-stamps." Therefore, they said, "it is the court's responsibility to make the materiality determination itself."

More alarming is the judges' understanding of what constitutes materiality -- and what informs, and more significantly does not inform, that understanding. The court never takes into account that the nation is under siege, that we are in a state of war against people trying to destroy our way of life, and that this war has been ordained by our citizens through the procedures laid out in our Constitution -- with the executive dispatching troops and taking prisoners under the sweeping authorization and continued funding support of Congress. One might think that would make the war's prosecution the highest priority of our political community. It is one thing, and quite a bad thing, to force the executive to defend our nation in court against our enemies. It is quite another thing, though, to suggest our enemies are entitled to a shred of information beyond the minimum necessary to demonstrate that their designation as enemy combatants is rational.

       ---Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review Online
          March 10, 2009

Iran Dupes The Brain Trust

Some Obama advisers have a dubious strategy to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran: Present "a common front" including Russia and China and "demonstrate U.S. respect" for the Islamofascist regime.  It may be judged the most astonishingly naive analysis of Tehran's nuclear ambitions ever unveiled.

Last week, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) -- a think tank founded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and which should know better -- released a report titled "Preventing a Cascade of Instability: U.S. Engagement to Check Iranian Nuclear Progress."...

At the heart of this thinking is a false premise: that the mullahs' Islamofascist, apocalyptic regime in Tehran views geopolitics the way we do, or even the way, say, the Saudi royal family does.

The reality is that these are fanatics who only in the last week or so called the state of Israel a "cancer," who held a conference for commentators who deny the Nazis' genocide of the Jews and who await the arrival of a Muslim messiah who will lead a holy war to impose Shiite world rule and relegate Western civilization to museum exhibits. Their idea of "strategic advantage" is an eventual mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv, London or New York...

Then there's the assertion that "a common front presented by influential members of the international community, including Russia and China, is particularly important for affecting Iran's willingness to compromise, but looks quite difficult to achieve."  No kidding; impossible is more like it...

We hope President Obama isn't naive enough to take advice like this report seriously. If not, we may be saddled with the most geopolitically illiterate administration since Jimmy Carter.

       ---Editorial, Investor's Business Daily
          March 9, 2009

Challenger Edges Out Dodd In Senate Poll
      
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) continues to look as though he could be in trouble in 2010, with a new poll showing him trailing former Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.) by one point.  The new Quinnipiac poll has the former congressman leading the Senate Banking Committee chairman 43-42 in a head-to-head match-up, even after Dodd's approval rating has rebounded a bit, to 49 percent.

The head-to-head is particularly ominous for Dodd, though, because more than half (53 percent) of voters say they don't know enough about Simmons to form an opinion, yet he is still neck-and-neck with the well-known incumbent...

       ---Aaron Blake, The Hill
          March 10, 2009

Lyndon Baines Obama
      
It was the winter of conservative discontent.  Barry Goldwater had gotten only 38 percent of the vote, and his party had suffered its worst thrashing since Alf Landon fell to FDR in 1936.   Democrats held 295 House seats, Republicans 140. They held 68 Senate seats to Republicans' 32, and 33 governors to the GOP's 17.

Democratic registration was twice that of the GOP. The liberal press was gleefully writing the obituary of "The Party That Lost Its Head."... Wrote Robert Donovan in the opening lines of his book, "The Future of the Republican Party": "The devastating defeat of Barry Goldwater at the hands of voters in all sections of the country but the Deep South has damaged, weakened and tarnished the party. For years to come ... the two-party system will be crippled."

Donovan and all the rest were wrong. The GOP came roaring back in 1966 to capture 47 House seats and eight new governorships. In 1968, Nixon led the party out of the wilderness and into a White House it would hold for 20 of the next 24 years.

By the winter of 1968, Lyndon Johnson was a broken president. History never repeats itself exactly. But Barack Obama is making the same mistakes today that LBJ made in 1965...

Obama is misreading the election returns. When America voted to cancel the White House lease of Mr. Bush, it did not vote Barack Obama a blank check.  By misinterpreting his mandate, Obama has accomplished something John McCain could not -- unite the Republican Party and instill in it a new esprit de corps. For the Obama budget is an insult to the core belief of the party -- that free people, not coercive government, should shape the character of society.

By daring Republicans to fight on the issue of a $1.75 trillion deficit, Obama has liberated the GOP from any obligation to him. He has come out of the closet as a radical liberal spoiling for a fight over an agenda of radical change.  Sooner than any might have thought, we have clarity.

       ---Patrick J. Buchanan, Human Events
          March 10, 2009

Doubly Taxed

While recognizing that many Americans this tax season are experiencing difficult times financially - some losing their jobs, others finding incomes decreased or else tapping into retirement funds - the Internal Revenue Service says to "file a tax return even if you are unable to pay" to avoid additional penalties.

And get this: the IRS says the loss of a job creates new tax issues.  "Severance pay and unemployment compensation are taxable," it warns. "Payments for any accumulated vacation or sick time also are taxable. You should ensure that enough taxes are withheld from these payments or make estimated tax payments to avoid a big bill at tax time."

If it's any consolation, food stamps are not taxable.

       ---John McCaslin, Inside the Beltway
          March 10, 2009

Cuba Si, Colombia No?

Congress may soften the embargo on communist Cuba soon. But with an authentic ally like Colombia still shut out of a free trade agreement that Congress promised, it sends a hideous message.

The $410 billion Omnibus spending bill, now working its way through the Senate for a second time, contains a buried provision to ease U.S. economic sanctions on the island.

Cuban-Americans will be given special travel privileges to visit relatives on Cuba, and be able to send unlimited remittances. Restrictions on food and medicine sales will be dropped, and goods sent to Cuba may even qualify for U.S. trade credits.

The Castro dictatorship, which controls all economic activity in Cuba, would no doubt benefit handsomely from this. Fees skimmed from remittances would beef up state coffers by the billions, while trade credits will let Cuba buy our goods with our money. Spies, too, will have a field day with freer travel.  And in return for all this, Castro gives . . . nothing.

There may be arguments for softening the embargo, such as depriving the ruling Castro oligarchy of excuses. But none hold water so long as Colombia, a U.S. ally that has helped us out as few others have, continues to be denied the free trade treaty that Congress promised in 2005, 2006, and 2007. It's downright obscene to reward Castro, an unremitting foe, while denying Colombia, a friend in a sea of free trade countries, the right to trade freely with us....

Why should Cuba be rewarded at a time when Congress' treatment of the U.S.' best allies shows the height of ingratitude and signals something is wrong with U.S. priorities? No normal nation shuns its friends and rewards its enemies.  And don't think the rest of the world isn't watching carefully and taking note.

       ---Editorial, Investor's Business Daily
          March 09, 2009

Guess Who Also Wanted A President To Fail? 

Patterico dusts off a 2006 poll from Fox News that plumbs the history of wishing failure a little more thoroughly than the media seems to want to do on their own.  The question of wishing success or failure is not new; Fox explicitly asked that very question to its survey respondents.  Fifty-one percent of Democrats wanted to see George Bush fail.  Even 34% of independents said they wanted to see Bush fail.  This came after Katrina and in the middle of the deluge of sectarian violence in Iraq, and not long before Bush's second midterms.  Three months later, Republicans lost Congress and Donald Rumsfeld got the boot.  Bush was not terribly popular then, and it didn't get better for him afterwards.

We didn't hear screams of outrage in the media when this survey showed a majority of Democrats wanting "our President" to fail... 

Update: Sister Toldjah -- who has a cool new design for her site -- finds the same result in a 2007 poll, but this time on Iraq.  34% of Democrats wanted the new US plan (the "surge") to fail, explicitly rooting for our military to fail.  That isn't asking for a prediction.  It's asking what people want -- and they wanted us to fail in Iraq.

       ---Ed Morrissey, HotAir.com
          March 9, 2009

Good News From Iraq

ISF, MND-B Soldiers detain suspected criminals
 
BAGHDAD -Iraqi Security Forces partnered with Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldiers detained three suspected criminals while conducting operations in the Rashid district of southern Baghdad.  Acting on a tip from an Iraqi citizen, Iraqi National Police from the 2nd NP Division, captured two suspected bomb makers in possession of more than 70 timers, one remote control, 13 batteries, a soldering gun, one silicon glue gun, a video cassette recorder and a laptop computer.  Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, responded to assist their NP partners in the investigation.  Police officers from the 2nd National Police Division, and Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, used a Baghdad Operations Center warrant in the Shurta community to detain a suspected criminal accused of terrorist activities.
 
Munitions cache discovered northwest of Baghdad

BAGHDAD -During joint operations, Iraqi Security Forces and Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldiers discovered a munitions cache northwest of Baghdad.  Iraqi Soldiers from the 6th Iraqi Army Division, working with Soldiers from the 2nd Stryker Battalion, 112th Infantry Regiment, attached to the 2nd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, discovered 12 60mm mortars, one 122mm high explosive artillery round, one rocket motor propellant stick, three TNT booster charges, one electric blasting cap, and a bag of plastic explosives.
 
Basra regional courthouse ready to serve justice

BASRA - Hundreds of people turned out to celebrate the dedication of a new six-court regional courthouse of justice in Basra.  The Union of Basra Court of Appeals was welcomed by Basra Governor Mohamad El Wa'eli, Iraqi Judiciary Commission Chairman Medhatt Al Mahmoud, Multi-National Division - South East Commander Maj. Gen. Andy Salmon, members of the Iraqi legal community, Iraqi Security Forces, other Coalition members and local media.  "This courthouse will be a monument of justice," Mahmoud said.  "Iraqi justice is very strong. It will not allow outside influences to keep it from serving justice."  The regional courthouse is expected to be operational in about 10 days. It is the highest court in the province and is expected to handle civil and criminal cases.  "I think this building is a reflection of the progress that the Coalition and the Iraqis have made," said Capt. Charles Bronowski, Multi-National Corps - Iraq Judge Advocate. "Rule of law is one of the most important aspects of self governance."  The building took about one year to complete by Iraqi contractors with oversight by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In addition to courtrooms, the facility includes investigation rooms, legal offices, a conference room and training facilities for staff.  "This is a symbol of the establishment of the rule of law and an increase in the judicial capacity," Salmon said. "This is exactly what is required at this stage on the road from where we've been to where we've got to get to, which is a stable and peaceful Basra."

       ---Multi-National Corps - Iraq