Of Bludgeons and Innovation

Yesterday, I got an email from the White House's propaganda wing, signed by O.  In it, he trumpets the fact that insurance companies "... will be required to spend at least 80 percent of the health insurance premiums you pay on your health care, instead of overhead costs like advertising and executive compensation."

The dolt, and the other dolts up there, seem to believe that these two things are unnecessary to the proper conduct of business.  He stopped short of saying that reform is meant to eliminate profits at insurance companies, but truly, that is the intent.  Since forever, insurance companies spent about 65% of revenues on payouts, using the other 35% for operating the business, so O has more or less appropriated 15% of the insurance companies' revenue.  (Hmmmm....is that an illegal taking?  Probably not, but it is, in effect.)

O's version of health care reform, if it goes fully into effect, will ultimately destroy our health care industry.  We will be left with a system of primary care with little capacity to meet higher level needs and will be bereft of innovation.  It will eventually be used to bludgeon us into compliance, just as TSA is being used right now.  The level of innovation will be governed by that engine of innovation that is our federal government.  You know, the organization that gave us the Post Office, the IRS, the government procurement process, the TSA and the EPA, among others.

One of the Giants Speaks

Bernie Marcus is one of the founders of Home Depot, one of the most remarkable businesses to spring to life in the last 30 years.  He and his co-founders, Arthur Blank and Ken Langone started from nothing back in the late ‘70’s and built a huge, successful business that redefined an entire industry.  In short, Marcus is the sort of man you would want to listen to about creating jobs, since he had a big hand in creating over 300,000 of them.

Being the evil rich man that he is (he’s worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 billion), a few years ago he single-handedly kicked in $200 million to the city of Atlanta to build what is now the world’s largest aquarium and has also signed on with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates at The Giving Pledge, (read his nasty letter at the link) where he has pledged to give most of his fortune to their foundation upon his death.

Mr. Marcus was on CNBC today and, well, he ain’t happy.  This is a little over 15 minutes long and worth every minute.  (I tried mightily with my puny HTML skilz to embed the video here, but it is apparently the video that will not be embedded.)

Are you listening up there in your Ivory Tower, Mr. President?

Another One on the Way Out

Yesterday, I wrote about Paul Otellini and his comments on investing in the US from the high point of being a Fortune 500 CEO.  Big picture, you might say.  Well, here is what it looks like up close, from the Washington Post, via Minyanville.

Read down a bit in the Minyanville piece and see what a guy went to engineering school to do in Elkhart, Indiana.

Here’s my theory on doing business with any government entity.  They pass rules and regulations not to get anything done but to keep something from getting done.  Specifically, government employees and manager come up with the regs that they come up with to keep them from getting in trouble.  That’s all.  That engineer is filling out mounds of paper for a stimulus project for no other reason than so a government clerk somewhere can make sure that all the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed because if that is done, then they really don’t care about the outcome.

It is this that led to the Bernie Madoff scheme.  Harry Markopolos, the man who tried to stop Madoff but couldn’t get anyone to listen to him, eventually came to the conclusion that the people running the SEC were all lawyers who neither had the math skills to understand what Madoff was doing, nor the inclination to understand.  They were merely concerned with making sure all the disclosure documents were properly filed.  Which they were.  How’d that work out?

How to drive businesses out of the US in three easy steps:

• Raise taxes
• Raise uncertainty
• Bury them with paperwork:
• “The United States, by contrast, has offered financing under the stimulus program, but the process has proved too cumbersome for the small company.”

Man, it works like a charm!

Jeez, the Press Sucks Balls

They are like a pack of cur dogs, sucking the balls of whatever politician is in front of them.  Read this article on Politico, “Seven Questions for the President”. 

Now read my questions that I left in their comments forum:

This is why people just don't trust the press.  6 of these 7 questions deal with image or politics or strategy. Only the Israel question, #6, deals with an actual issue.  Hey Politico?!?!  How about asking the Prez about an issue and about the actions he intends to take with respect to that issue?  Here are some suggestions:

1.  You promised that unemployment wouldn't go over 8%.  It has been in the 10% range for nearly your entire presidency.  Specifically, what changes will you make to solve this pressing issue?

2.  The US has, for decades, allowed illegal aliens to stream across the border.  Will you stop that flow of illegals as is your constitutional duty?

3.  Your financial reform bill has left many zombie banks still operating and failed to address the "too big to fail" aspect of those big banks.  In other words, the reform did little to eliminate the systemic risk that multiplied this economic collapse. It seems that the reform was the equivalent of throwing the banks into the briar patch.  What steps will you take to prevent such a collapse from happening again?

4.  The administration appears poised to push GM into a public offering even though early reviews of GM's SEC filings have garnered a collective yawn.  Wouldn't it make more sense to wait until business conditions improve?  Or are you pushing this for purely political reasons, to give yourself something to tout during the election cycle?  And do you plan to purchase a Chevy Volt?

5.  Why are you now asking for an additional stimulus bill given that roughly half of the first stimulus has not been spent?

6.  A recent headline stated that you have accumulated more debt for the country than all the Presidents from Washington through Reagan, collectively.  Secretary of Defense Gates has stated that this level of debt represents a national security threat.  Secretary of State Clinton has said that it impairs her ability to conduct our affairs abroad and limits American influence abroad.  How will you pay that down and strengthen this country?

7.  Governing is a lot harder than running your mouth on the campaign trail, isn't it?

Enjoy your round of golf today, Mr. President.

Why Government Shouldn’t Try to Pick Winners

Whenever the government meddles about in any given market, trying to designate its preferred winner or outcome, it invariably fails.  Right now, the Exalted One is involved in doing just this on a number of fronts; the auto industry, the energy industry, the medical industry, the financial industry and so on.  In the auto industry, The One gives us the Chevy Volt:

Not a bad looking car.  But you can get a non-hybrid counterpart from Chevy for about $25,000 less.  Chevy had more or less mothballed the Volt until the government bought 61% of them and ordered the Volt to be brought to market.  Obama, you see, knows what we want better than we know what we want.  Prediction:  neither the Volt nor its lower-cost counterpart (the Cruze?).  See, that’s how I know it won’t sell.  I can’t even remember the name of the car.  But, because O wants to see “green” stuff (let alone the fact that there isn’t anything significantly more green about the Volt), the Volt gets built.  It’s suits his political purposes.  Sometime in November, O is going to force GM to go public and it has little to do with whether or not it makes good business sense.  It will happen because it suits O’s political purposes.

For decades, government has mucked about in the housing industry.  Mortgage interest deductions, Fannie and Freddie doing their thing with the sub-prime stuff, flood insurance and so on.  Here is proof that all this centralized planning (and that is what it is) has failed.  18 months and billions of dollars and the Moron in Chief still thinks that throwing another $50 billion or so at the economy will somehow magically cure it.  Here is an open letter to the President by Dr. Jeffrey Harding, an economics blogger that tells him exactly what the problems are and how to address them.  The blogger is right on every point.  (BTW, any time you read an econ blog you must read the accompanying comments.  They are frequently better and more informative than the original post.)  From ZeroHedge:

“Here are some guiding principles for "what works":

1. Economies can repair themselves without a lot of government help. History has proven this time and again.
2. Government interference in the repair process can hinder recovery or even make things worse.
3. Government spending is very inefficient.
4. Individuals can make better choices about what to do with their money than the government.
5. Economic growth only comes from private enterprise. The corollary of this is that government can only spend money, not make money.
6. Since government produces nothing, then real growth and real jobs can only come from private enterprise.
7. If government spending is inefficient and if economic growth comes only from the private sector, then taking vast amounts of money out of private hands and putting it into government hands will hinder growth.
8. Government spending to revive an economy has failed wherever and whenever it has been tried.
9. More legislation increases uncertainty for businesses, making them reluctant to expand (called "regime uncertainty" in economic terms).”

As noted in the comments, this viewpoint and the accompanying advice will be ignored.  It doesn’t fit with O’s worldview.

This just in and related to this post.  Austan Goolsbee is on the Prez’s Council of Economic Advisers and may be up next to replace the horribly inept Christina Romer.  This admittedly wonky piece basically sums up what I have been trying to say here.  So-called “targeted” spending or incentives don’t work, and Goolsbee based his doctoral thesis on this finding.  Now, he has to dance around his own work.  Should be fun.

Finally, here is what happens when a politician goes off the deep end when it comes to spending money based on his own preferences.  Learn about Russia’s Chess City, built in 1998 on the whim of a politician.  Why, he likes chess so everybody must like chess just as much! 

Chess City is crumbling, by the way, and largely uninhabited.  So, what color Volt are you gonna buy?

I Blame Tom Delay

 

And, to a lesser degree, Newt Gingrich.  And W.  And Trent f’n Lott.  Damn them, it is their fault that we are about to flip socialist. 

Why these guys?  It all started with this, Delay’s “K Street Strategy”.  This is where the fiscal irresponsibilty, corruption and appearances of corruption began.  The K Street Strategy, in a nutshell, consisted of Delay twisting the arms of the K Street lobbying firms to send the vast majority of their money to Republicans and to even remove Left-leaning lobbyists from their positions and replace them with more Right-leaning types.  In return, the lobbyists and their clients got what they wanted.  It was vote-buying in it’s most bald-faced form; a scorched-earth strategy and the earth has been fucking scorched to shit right now.

This strategy led to a surfeit of money in Republican coffers and then to assholes like Ted f’n Stevens and his goddamned Bridge to Nowhere.  And it was this effect that so thoroughly discredited them as fiscal conservatives to the point that we elected a Socialist and allowed the even more Socialist Pelosi, Waxman, Markey and so on to take the reins of government.

The article linked above appeared in the Washington Post, co-written by David Maraniss and Michael Weisskopf in 1995.  They were never more prophetic than when they wrote this, emphasis added:

“Yet money is also the source of increasing tension among House Republicans that could ultimately weaken them, if not tear them apart. The conflict, in essence, is between ideology and populist reform. One wing wants to collect as much corporate money as possible to sustain and expand the revolution. Another wing fears that this will disillusion voters who brought the Republicans to power to change the traditional ways of doing business in Washington. Gingrich stands in the middle aware, people around him say, that his tenure could depend in part on his ability to resolve the conflict.”

Newt, Newt, Newt.  You blew it.  If you saw the tension here and let it go unimpeded, you laid the groundwork for yours and America’s demise.  All those Lefty nutbags back then hated you because they thought that you would ruin the country, and they were right for the wrong reason.  The country is about to take a road that it cannot return from.  The nutbags wouldn’t be orgasming today over Obama had you simply put your foot down on this activity and set the tone then that Republicans should hew to the principles of fiscal conservatism that is so important to conservative voters.  And then along came W with an allergy to the veto pen and here we are.

Folks, it’s gonna be a long, slow descent into European-style malaise.  We get to watch China, Asia and Brazil take center stage on the world now. 

Watch now, once this crap passes on Sunday, as hiring by private companies goes nowhere.  Companies have been waiting to see what would happen with this and other bills and the only conclusion they can come to now is that their costs are going to permanently and unalterably increase.  No CEO in his right mind would take on added costs in this environment.  Get ready for permanent 10 to 12% unemployment.  We won’t have jobs, but we’ll have health care.

I wonder if I can get my congressman to put provisions for nutrient ingestion in the bill?

What Happened on August 28, 2008…

…that might have had something to do with our financial collapse?  Barack Obama accepted the Democrat nomination, that’s what.  That is also when the stock market took a dive and also when unemployment really kicked in to high gear.  Look, I am no statistician or pollster or financial analyst, but when you look at the following charts I have assembled, it gives you pause.  I thought at the time that at least part of the reason that things cratered when they did is that it became clear to Wall Street and businesses in general that we were about to elect an anti-business President and perhaps a Democrat majority in Congress.  And, since businesses can’t afford to wait and see if they are right in these matters, they acted almost immediately in the face of the higher cost of doing business that was coming their way.

From the BBC, here is the timeline of the 2008 election:



I used Rasmussen in the above shot because according to this analysis from Costas Panagopoulos of Fordham University, Rasmussen was the most accurate poll of the 2008 election. Sorry, I know that Rasmussen is evil and all, but he is also mostly correct.

Less than a month later on September 18, Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke were asking Congress for carte blanche to deal with the imminent collapse of the whole damn global financial system and it was on like Donkey Kong.  Here is a very nifty timeline of events back then, from Dipity:

Economic Collapse Timeline on Dipity.

You can probably see it better if you click through to Dipity.  Also, scroll a bit to the left to see the beginning of the events.  Dipity starts with September of 2008.  Things really accelerate after August 28, don't they?

Next, from MSN Money is the Dow Jones, S&P and NASDAQ averages from February 2007 through February 2010.  Note the highlighted points; the market cratered beginning at the end of August 2008.



Clearly, the market was already trending down by August, but right after the nomination everything fell off the cliff.  

Finally, here is the unemployment trend from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:



Again, unemployment was trending upwards from about December 2007 on, but it accelerated dramatically after August 2008, increasing a full 1.3 percentage points from August to December of 2008.  For the math-impaired, that was a 21 percent increase over that period of time, compared to an 8.6 percent increase over the same period in 2007.

I posit that the election of Barack Obama pushed the economy over the edge into panic mode.  Investors wanted out of markets, companies knew they had to cut overhead and they all knew that they had to act quickly, before Obama and the Dems took office and imposed higher costs in the form of higher taxes, health care reform, cap and trade and because of the simple fact that modern Democrats in general and Obama in particular are essentially socialist in philosophy. Couple this with the deteriorating business conditions in general and the collapse was inevitable.

No, Obama’s nomination did not cause the financial deterioration of the economy.  That was already underway.  But it damn sure sped things up and made things worse.  With his nomination and subsequent election, all hopes of a soft landing evaporated.  Elections really do have consequences.

Obama Fail

 

Or it will soon be a fail.  Again, the ego gets in the way. 

“President Obama kicks off what might be called his "Save the Senate" tour this week, heading west to campaign for two embattled Democrats trailing badly against Republican challengers - including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.”

He has this unfailing belief, it seems, that his mere presence assures victory.  It didn’t work in in Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts or for the Chicago Olympic bid.  It won’t work for Harry Reid; Reid is so far down in the polls that he must know that he has little, if any, chance to be re-elected.  Bringing Obama out to the desert isn’t going to change that for the better, at all.

Obama will be able to raise money for Reid and Michael Bennet of Colorado, but it will almost certainly cost them votes, especially Reid.

Obama Win

 

I pretty much hammer on our President here, but I am willing to give him some props when he does something I think is right, and by helping to get a new nuclear power plant built, he is doing something good.  If he really wants to help this project, he will smooth the regulatory process out for the builder.  The red tape these projects must go through add greatly to the cost of the project.

As always, though, with our ever so humble President, it remains to be seen what sort of follow-up he will deploy.  He’s not so great with follow up.

And Herein Lies the Problem

 

When members of his own party begin to make statements like this, I don’t see how anybody should expect Republicans or leaders of other countries can be expected to do business with Obama:

 

 

Link to story and video is here.  (Real Clear Politics doesn’t allow embedding, apparently.)

Maybe Obama is doing some kind of amazingly brilliant counter-intuitive strategy.  Maybe he is doing the old “reverse psychology” trick that works so well on 4 year olds.  But we’re not 4 year olds, though he apparently thinks that we are all a bunch of rabble to be led into the wake of his magnificence. 

And when the New York Times begins to question his credibility and integrity, he is on the downward slide to Cartericity or maybe Nixonism.  Either way, this is a problem for all of us, conservative or liberal.  The US needs a strong, trustworthy, effective President and right now Barry is lacking in all of those things.

The Problem with Familiarity

 

Remember this?  (From the NY Times)

 

 

Now look at this headline from Bloomberg:

 

 

Now look at these two, from The Raleigh News & Observer and the Charlotte Observer, respectively:

 

 

 

In the first two stories, we have a glaring example of lack of consistency and an arrogant display of subjective bias.  He takes the “fat cats” to task on a regular basis and that is the part that people will remember.  The rabble cheers him when he does this.  But these two guys over here, the ones that he knows personally?  Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan?  Hey, they make less than A-Rod, so it’s cool.  He has given a tacit approval to their clear attempts to avoid controversy by taking stock instead of large cash bonuses.  Blankfein clearly reined himself in by taking only $9 million, while Dimon unapologetically took $16 million.  Dimon should have taken double that; JP Morgan is a very profitable company and he has served his shareholders and employees well.  Blankfein took $62 million in 2007 and Goldman is the undisputed king of Wall Street.  He should have taken another $62 million.  The problem with this is that Obama is giving a pass to two CEOs merely because he knows them personally while essentially meddling with the relationship between these two guys and their company and shareholders.  When Obama is calling out the fat cats, he is really saying, “We want our money back from the fat cats…….uh, except for my golfing buddies Lloyd and Jamie.  But all the rest of you are evil and greedy.”  This is arrogant.  This is subjective bias, with the pardon granted merely because he knows these two guys and thinks they are “savvy”.  It shows a lack of rigor in his thought processes in allowing him to grant leniency merely because of personal familiarity.

Then you look at the headlines from the Raleigh and Charlotte papers (they are both McClatchy papers, hence the identical photos) and it adds further to the recognition that Obama doesn’t know the effect his “fat cat” comments or his ongoing disdain for Las Vegas have on the economy.  Charlotte is the 2nd biggest banking center in the country, after New York.  Bank bonuses are important to the economy there and always have been.  My daughter attends a college near Charlotte that has long had a relationship with Wachovia and the donations that came from Wachovia and one of its executives in particular were vital to the school.  That Wachovia fat cat is no longer able to help out as he had done in the past.  New York Mayor Bloomberg is on record as wanting the state of New York and President Obama to soften their stances with regard to the wealthy over taxing the bonuses they receive.  He recognizes that when taxes on the rich become confiscatory, it hurts the New York City’s and Charlotte’s of the world.

Obama has absolutely no understanding of how the economy works in this country.  He wants to punish business and confiscate money from the business world to redistribute according to his whims, hence the healthcare bill and the increased taxes that he is contemplating, not to mention the cap and trade bullshit bill.  That this is done on a whim is the real problem.  He is attempting to reshape the country according to his personal vision.  This is a country of laws and individuals, not the United States of Obama.  Companies aren’t hiring or moving forward right now because Obama’s governance by fiat makes them uneasy and who could blame them? 

A suggestion to all Fortune 500 CEOs; try to get a tee time with Barry some time this year.  Maybe that will settle things down once and for all.

Is it a Reflex? [UPDATED]

 

Does he do this consciously or is this some long dormant remnant from his youth?  He grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, and maybe this is a common greeting in those places.  I can’t say for sure; I’ve never been to either place.  But it seems that the minute he sees someone with Oriental features, his waist goes all jelly-like and he starts bowing like crazy.

 

Had Bush done this, he would be getting ridiculed for being an insular, unworldly idiot.  Why doesn’t Obama get the same treatment?  Why does he continue to get a pass in the media for these actions?  Because the media is only now coming around to the notion that he ain’t all that and a bag of chips, but they still can’t bring themselves to go after him hammer and tong.  Yet.

UPDATE:  Video here of the actual bow and it confuses me.  On the one hand, his eyes are facing the ground, the essence of a bow and as sure a way as any to show subservience.  On the other hand, he bows so quickly that it could simply be an overly energetic greeting, sort of like what some people do when they are really excited to meet someone.  I think it is simply a reflex action for him, probably from having lived in Asia and Asian-influenced places.

Here’s What Obama Wants for us….

 

….just heartbreaking.

 

 

This is how health care rationing works.  Some bureaucrat, our wonderful Governor in this case, has to save a few bucks and it is people like the Mabrys that suffer for the incompetence.  Some years ago, the state decided that a great way to save money would be to get out of the mental health care business.  Sort of.  You see, they decided that it was absolutely necessary that they retain some control over the system, so they just held the purse strings while outsourcing treatment to private providers.  I’m all for the private operators providing care, but the state has terribly mismanaged the whole process.  The whole system functions sort of like Medicaid, with the state paying for treatment in amounts they deem appropriate.  It doesn’t work.  There are constant backlogs, people can’t get service and many simply walk away.  The state insists on oversight of the care of these people and apparently, oversight includes not providing services when it is inconvenient for them.

It looks like Obama’s health care plan is dead, or at least on its last legs.  I truly hope that someone soon, I don’t care who or which party, takes up reform again in the very near future and fixes the whole mess.  A big first step in fixing it will be getting the government all the fuck the way out of it.

Maoist Fashion [UPDATED]

 

This is too easy, sometimes.  Here is a photo of White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett that landed in my inbox this morning from Politico. (article here)  Is that a Mao jacket she is wearing?

 

Pretty close.  Here is the original:

 

Does anybody really know what Jarrett does?  Her title is Senior Advisor.  So, what is her area of expertise?  I know she’s President Obama’s best buddy, blah, blah, blah.  But what, exactly, is she good at?  Military affairs?  Economic matters?  Education?  Union relations?  O originally wanted her to be in his cabinet (Can’t remember what for.  Health and Human Services?), but that didn’t fly so now she is in the kitchen cabinet.

Read the opening two paragraphs from the Politico piece:

“White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett vowed that President Barack Obama will keep up his aggressive outreach to the business community, even as the president steps up his attacks against irresponsible players on Wall Street and in the insurance industry.

“Business is really not a partisan issue,” Jarrett said in an interview for POLITICO’s new video series, “Inside Obama’s Washington.” “What I hear from the business community all the time is that they want a strong economy. That’s a goal that the president shares. They want to create the kind of environment in this country where they feel secure about investing and building for the future, and that’s completely consistent with the president’s objective to create jobs.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31805.html#ixzz0djCXQhqf “

President Obama is making an “aggressive outreach” to the business community?  He disparages business at every opportunity.  A recent poll showed that 77% of investors view him as anti-business.  He wants “to create the kind of environment in this country where they feel secure about investing and building for the future, and that’s completely consistent with the president’s objective to create jobs.”?  Really?  Really, Valerie?  OK, let me help you.  This afternoon, have the President make the following announcement.  He will probably need the teleprompter so he doesn’t choke on the words:

“In view of the continued economic strains the country is under, I have decided to suspend pursuit of health care reform.  Also, I will be putting on hold any further discussion on the cap and trade bill.  I recognize that businesses view these initiatives as additional costs and until we determine that businesses can absorb these additional costs, we will halt our efforts.”

His all-important popularity will soar, markets will rise and businesses will pick up the pace.  Try it, Valerie, you’ll like it.

UPDATE:  So I went back to trash the article out of my inbox and got another look at the headline that came in with the picture and it struck me as funny to see that picture of Jarrett with this headline:

 

Mao nationalized private business in China. She wants us to believe that she, and Obama, understand how to support business.  My ass.

Just Damn….

Look at this damn thing:


That big red bar on the far right there looks like somebody turned on a spigot.  Courtesy of SayAnythingBlog.  I’ll be charitable here and allow that $800 billion or so of that is TARP money, which I agree was necessary.  If you were looking to invest in a business and you saw the revenues take the dive that they do in 2009 while the spending goes through the roof, you would run screaming from the broker who is trying to get you to buy this pig.  Jeez, the deficit is roughly equal to all of the tax revenue.

We cannot get out from under this any time soon and Unicorn One, along with Pelosi, will blow this thing up in 2010.  I don’t care if Obama has suddenly discovered that he is using Monopoly money, this is unsustainable.

In Which I Venture Into the Land of the Dingbats

 

Below is an exchange I prompted at Huffington Post today, link here.  (Link should take you right to the comments, may have to scroll down just an inch or so.)  Yeah, I’ve only got 2 fans there.  Imagine that.

 

DaveyNC 2 fans permalink

OK, I'm a conservative, particularly in comparison to the HuffPo crowd.
I don't get it. I don't get the Palin allure for those on the right and I don't get the profound hatred of her from the left. This article helps me to understand a little more why lefties don't like her, but it doesn't help me to understand the unbridled hatred she receives. I mean, come on folks, the way to handle such a lightweight is to ignore her, yet you all seem to fairly obsess over her. I come from the right side of the spectrum and I don't pay very much attention to her, other than that poster of her I have on my ceiling.
I can only compare her baffling popularity on the right to the baffling popularity that Obama enjoys (once enjoyed?) from those on the left. There is/was absolutely nothing in their CV's to suggest that they were competent to hold high office, from these babblings by Palin to Obama's unteleprompted ramblings and continued losing streak in initiatives.
When we fall into a cult of personality, like we have now, we are in dangerous waters.

Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 05:13 PM on 12/07/2009

-heidiMT I'm a Fan of heidiMT 34 fans permalink

Under normal circumstances I would ignore someone of Palins intellectual caliber. That being said, I cannot stand by and remain silent at the divisiveness that she promotes. She is encouraging policy that is based on her religious beliefs. She is encouraging the resurgance of racially motivated attacks. I could go on and on about how I believe she is taking us backwards as a nation. Silence can be interpreted as approval.

Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 05:54 PM on 12/07/2009

-KayJay90 I'm a Fan of KayJay90 33 fans permalink

She's the face of a group of theocrats who are intent on "stealth" candidating their way into a majority of our national legislative branch, and if they can do it again, into our national executive branch of government. Witness: the C Street not-so-secret-any more secret society, of which several hypocritical 10-Command ment-break ing so-called christians belong, and are counselled (to hide their behavior) and "forgiven" by their peers.
The theocrats I'm talking about, also known as political evangelica l/dominion ists, have also done a dam'nd good job of infiltrating the U.S. Military with their brand of christianism, tinged with more than a little bit of race- and other-orga nized-reli gion hatred.

Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 05:56 PM on 12/07/2009

-sippewissett I'm a Fan of sippewissett 54 fans permalink

Your last sentence is in fact why the Left and Moderates dislike Palin. (Don't use "hate"; she slings that word around against anyone who criticizes her legitimate ly.)
We are united in our belief that we need smart, ethical leaders, NOT a former beauty contestant who looks at public service as a series of pageants to "win". It is precisely "the cult of personality" that we disdain. Palin doesn't know what she doesn't know -- nor do her "base". Can you imagine someone with her shallow grasp of economics, finance, foreign policy, geography and history in the White House?
* If Faux News wants to give her a show, have at it. We don't watch Fox anyway.
* If Wasilla wants to make her their sled-dog catcher, have at it. We won't have her in our neighborhoods any more.
* If she wants to write another book with more "haters" in it, more victimhood, more adventures from a private jet so she can connect with "real Americkuns", have at it. We won't buy it.
We just don't want her on the national political "stage" thinking that it's time to play her flute as a way to obtain a serious public service position. Bring on smart, serious, public-ser vice-minde d people for national positions and leave Palin to rail against the unfairness of it all...back in Alaska, please.

Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 05:57 PM on 12/07/2009

-wanda665 I'm a Fan of wanda665 32 fans permalink

Well said, Sipp, and I am in total agreement. The reason she flits around military bases is she is well aware many of the soldiers are from the towns she plays to. You know, the real Amerikuns. Well I am from a family of military men who do not care for her. Some men in the military know we need real leadership, not quitters. Trust is very important, and that whining bird cannot be trusted. Check her record in Alaska. Check about the school buses, if information is still available.

Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 09:06 PM on 12/07/2009

-MJHammonds I'm a Fan of MJHammonds 136 fanspermalink

As a woman who is also from a family of military men (father, brother, husband & son), I agree wholeheartedly, as does my family.
Fanned.

Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 09:47 PM on 12/07/2009

-MJHammonds I'm a Fan of MJHammonds 136 fans permalink

Sippe, I just wrote a rather long post in response to the same one you responded to, but I think you said it best. Fanned.

Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 10:07 PM on 12/07/2009

-c2morow I'm a Fan of c2morow 10 fans permalink

I dont hate her, but at the same time I dont respect anything about her. However, I think the biggest fear is that there are people out there who actually believe in her and find her acceptable to hold higher office, thus presenting the statistical probability, that she could actually have a position of influence at some point. It baffles any rational person, to the point of frustration, that others buy into her logic, her views and it just seems perposterous that someone like Sarah could even get this far. At least, that's my take.

Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 05:59 PM on 12/07/2009

-Kitzy I'm a Fan of Kitzy 3 fans permalink

Well said.

Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 09:19 PM on 12/07/2009

-Jeff1958 I'm a Fan of Jeff1958 42 fans permalink

FaiI. Dragging Obama through the same mud as Palin suggests that you are, in fact, cIueIess.

Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 06:27 PM on 12/07/2009

-michelesda I'm a Fan of michelesda 3 fans permalink

I always wonder when people talk about lefties hating or fearing Palin; where does this impression come from? Is it because they don't take her seriously, make fun of her; does that equate to hate for some people? In fact, you have to take somebody seriously to hate or fear them. To fear SP, you'd have to believe that she actually has a snowball's chance in hell; who really believes that? Certainly not lefties, who are actually hoping she will run. That, and being a perpetual walking punch line; what's to hate or fear about that?

Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 07:11 PM on 12/07/2009

-jdunaway65 I'm a Fan of jdunaway65 7 fans permalink

You know, I have been wondering that myself, and as I read your comment, a theory dawned on me...
As you say, not too many on the left have stated that they "hate" Palin. Many (myself included) are amused by her, and those with any intelligence keep an eye on her movements and followers, hoping there are not enough of them out there to actually get her elected.
But back to the "hate"... if you remember during the Bush years, they made all those statements that anyone who criticizes or does not blindly follow the President or support his war are unpatriotic, I think some even suggested treasonous (if that's the case, what are Cheney, Rush, Beck, O'Reilley, etc?). That same mindset comes into play when they say that anyone who criticizes or does not support her, HAS to hate her.
Again, I ask -- if non-supporters or critics of Palin hate her, wouldn't that mean that these same people who say that and at the same time do not support, or criticize Obama have to hate our President as well? Hmmm -- that's not very Christian (or patriotic), is it?

Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 07:42 PM on 12/07/2009

-drlouise I'm a Fan of drlouise 17 fans permalink

I don't hate her...I'm just worried about the permission she gives folks to be intolerant, angry and bitter. Scares me, saddens me and amazes me that there are people who believe she is qualified to lead the country.

Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 08:56 PM on 12/07/2009

-Sundiszno I'm a Fan of Sundiszno 3 fans permalink

It's not that I hater HER. I hate the politics that she represents. I hate the resurgence of the Know Nothings.

Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 09:42 PM on 12/07/2009

Atta Boy, Cadet!

The caption says that they were still waiting for Him to appear. I'm thinking this fellow knew that cameras would be firing away.  Photo from Reuters via Yahoo! News.

Unprecedentedness

Hey, if you’re going to do something that hasn’t been done before, you might as well raise the bar really high; like, doubling the previous record.  This would be the equivalent of Usain Bolt running the 100 meter race in 4.79 seconds.  President Obama has doubled the budget that even George W dumped on us.  He’s done this in just eight and a half months in office.  He’s already spent one-fifth of the total that Bill Clinton spent in his entire eight years in office.

To be fair, spending comes from Congress, though they are often acting on a President’s demands.  One of the most dangerous times for our freedom and financial safety comes when we have stupidly managed to give one party control of Congress and the White House.  We did this with W and have done it again with O and the result is ruinous.  An economy in collapse, trust in government shattered, a country ideologically split.  I told everybody I could back during the election, when it became clear that Obama would win to go ahead and vote for him but to vote Republican for Congressional and Senate seats in order to emplace a forceful opposition to Obama.  (This was pre-blog, so not on the record anywhere; you’ll just have to take my word for it.)

So now we have a leftist President handing off the heavy lifting to the even more leftist Nancy Pelosi and the dweebish Harry Reid.  Obama sets the course and Pelosi and Reid push the spending through to advance their agenda and they seem to have little to no understanding of how the real world works out here.  They are finally making noises about juicing job creation but amazingly, they think that they can do that by raising taxes and heaping the health care entitlement onto the backs of business.  If the health care bill passes, we will get to see another spike in the unemployment rate and it will be permanent this time as businesses either leave the US or retrench in such a way as to function on lower revenues and with less staff.

Callous Children.

This Makes My Teeth Hurt

Well, he is the first, uh, the most unprecedented pop culture President ever:

ABC announces Oprah-Obama Christmas special

He can’t stand it, he has to be on a TV screen somewhere all the time, telling us how wonderful and unprecedented he is.  ABC has guaranteed that roughly half the people in the country now have zero interest in watching ABC that night.

Caption Contest

White House photo from here.

“I’m so sorry about what I did to your future!”

“If I could reach that flower vase, I would crack you a good one!”