Archive for March, 2009
Mystery of the Day: Who was Dodd's accomplice with the AIG business?
Here’s a great catch over at Redstate.
Chris Dodd did not work alone in protecting AIG’s bonuses. He had an accomplice.
(1) Dodd’s amendment was added in the conference that took place between members of the House and the Senate, as the two versions of Obama’s Trillion Dollar Spending Bill were merged and reconciled into one.
(2) Dodd was not a member of that conference.
(3) Dodd was not able to slip an amendment into the bill on his own.
(4) Harry Reid, Max Baucus, and Daniel Inouye were the three Senators in the conference who could have slipped Dodd’s amendment protecting AIG into Obama’s Trillion Dollar Spending Bill.
Which one of them did it?
Which one of them helped Dodd and the White House protect AIG’s bonuses?
Today, as many people as possible should call their Senators and Representatives until we get an answer as to which man, Reid, Inouye, or Baucus is complicit with Dodd in this.
CAPITOL SWITCHBOARD: (202) 224-3121
Congresswoman Foxx takes Democrats to task for not reading the Obama Trillion Dollar Spending Bill before voting on it
There is no excuse for the idiocy on display by Democrats in Washington.
No excuse.
You cannot feign outrage over what AIG did with bonuses, when you didn’t bother to read the Obama Trillion Dollar Spending Bill before you voted YES! on it, and specifically you didn’t read the amendment the White House and Treasury Department had willing accomplice Chris Dodd slip into the boondoggle spending bill.
Congresswoman Foxx is an American hero for going after these clowns.
Let. Them. Have. It.
Reading is fundamental. Passing bills without reading them first should be immediate disqualification from serving in Congress. It should mean expulsion from the body — if these public servants go to Washington and vote YES! on things without reading them, then anyone picked at random from the phone book could take their places in Congress.
We get madder and madder over this every day.
The Legion of Doom couldn't do a better job destroying America than the Obama Administration is doing
In the comic books, Lex Luthor ran for President in 2000 as the Tomorrow Party candidate, facing off against Al Gore and George W. Bush, promising hope and change and all sorts of marvelous technological advancements (renewable energy, Kryptonite-green technology, fixing all broken souls, lowering the oceans, fulfilling dreams, lemonade and pixie dust). Through the efforts of community organizing groups in large cities like Gotham and Metropolis, and the unprecedented turnout of not only deceased but completely imaginary voters, Luthor won the presidency to media applause — and promptly began a systematic plan to bring America to its knees, using various cataclysms of his own design as cover for general nefarity, all with his ultimate obsessive goal of killing Superman in mind.
Because that’s who Lex Luthor is.
As absurd as this truly all is, Lex Luther took several years in the comic books to actually achieve any of his crazed, demented goals. And he had Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and various other spandex and vinyl fetishists thwarting his every move.
Obama’s been in office for 59 days now, and has already caused more havoc and damage than the Legion of Doom ever dreamed of.
He, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Tim Geithner, Steven Chu, Ray LaHood, Eric Holder, Rahm Emanuel, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Claire McCaskill, the Kennedy Family, and other terrible Democrats in Washington put Luthor, Catwoman, Toyman, The Joker, The Riddler, Captain Cold, and the rest of the comic books’ rogue’s gallery to shame in their greed, waste, graft, corruption, ineptitude, and grandiose ill-conceived-and-poorly-implemented-schemes.
If the Legion of Doom purposefully wanted to tank the American economy from within, it would not do a better job terrorizing Wall Street, small investors, and average working Americans than the Obama Administration. Doom agents would conjure giant spiders or robot penguins to attack Wall Street head-on, while Joker’s harlequin gang giggled its way through bank after bank, looting as much as they could stuff into comicly large purses and laughable gift bags.
Those criminal clowns have nothing on Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, who rammed through a Trillion Dollar Spending Bill that no one, NOT A SINGLE DAMN SOUL, actually read in the House or Senate before voting for it. Catwoman never stole so much in one sitting. Toyman never squandered so much treasure on anything so absurd and ridiculous. The Riddler never snuck in so many tricks and surprises (like Chris Dodd’s bonus provisions for corporate executives).
It’s all mind-boggling.
Giethner at Treasury seems determined to chase every last investor away from the market. Dr. Steven Chu, at Energy, has not only declared war on coal producing states like West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, but seems hell-bent on starting a trade war with China over carbon emissions tariffs. Kathleen Sebelius, a woman who drove the entire state of Kansas into the ground, is now poised to oversee what will amount to more than $2 TRILLION in healthcare spending. Sebelius has never done anything to warrant confidence and faith in her abilities strong enough to put her in charge of a lemonade stand, let alone reform of America’s Byzantine healthcare system. Why not just give this job to Solomon Grundy, who was born on a Monday, and who, like Sebelius, has all the enthusiasm, energy, and wherewithal of someone who’s been buried in the ground somewhere for half a dozen years.
Every day, there’s a new lie told, and more blame shifted around.
No one reads the legislation the Obama Administration passes, which is deliberate, so that later they can all claim they knew nothing about any of the shocking things that have been going on behind the scenes. “The reason I don’t read the bills I force through the House,” we imagine Pelosi purring, “is so that I’m not responsible for them after people find out what I have done. I very rarely read anything other than clothing labels, and that’s just so I don’t get stuck with any more acrylic. I learned that from Caroline Kennedy who is, you know, so smart about avoiding two things in life: hard work, and acrylic. You know.”
If characters in comic books behaved like Democrats in Washington these days, you’d stop buying those titles, as they’d strain even the most twisted rules of logic in BizarroWorld, and would be impossible to believe.
‘The stock market sank that much, that fast?”
“The national debt tripled in 60 days?”
“The Stimulus Bill wasn’t really a stimulus after all, but just a poorly disguised trillion dollar payback to disparate Democratic constituencies hungry for pork projects after being largely shut out of the trough for the last 8 years?”
Obama’s “stimulus bill” is more wildly successful than anything Lex Luthor ever dreamed up, that’s for sure. Though he employed a classic Legion of Doom tactic (naming something innocuous or even positive, but all the while intending it for another purpose entirely — where Operation Smiley Happy Kitten is really a space-based death ray hovering somewhere in orbit over the moon), Obama was able to pass legislation that in no way actually relates to “stimulus”, but instead commits the federal government to generations of budget deficits, for wasteful pork projects that will entrench themselves and refuse to die long after the CRISIS! Obama and the media brayed about abates on its own (several years later than it would have, without discredited Keynesian interference).
And, once the Trillion Dollar Obama Spending Bill passed, suddenly Obama changed his tune on the CRISIS!, repurposing it as “not as bad as we thought it was”. Good thing we spent One Trillion Dollars on things we don’t need and aren’t able to pay for anyway.
But, Lex Luthor’s plots and schemes all had a larger purpose than just sinking California into the ocean or raising new continents from the Atlantic made from ugly, burnt crystals; they were all designed with an ultimate super-goal in mind, which was forever the elimination of Superman.
What’s Obama’s ultimate goal in all of this?
The elimination of America as we know it?
The creation of New France?
It seems like crisis after crisis is manipulated to keep his poll numbers up for the next four years, so he can land a second term, with the MSM facilitating this in every way they can. Obama clearly loves the perks of the presidency, and all the pomp and circumstance, but does he really care about the American people, or the economic suffering many now share? Does he see his Treasury Secretary is making the economy worse each day he’s on the job, or that his Energy Secretary could inadvertantly start a trade war with China that would resonate instantly on a global level? Does Obama care that no one of any competence oversees the billions being spent by the Transportation and Health and Human Services Departments?
Or is everything he does not about the best interests of Americans, but for some other purpose, personal and all his own, that’s not clear to anyone else?
That’s the question at hand and, unfortunately, unlike anything asked by The Riddler in the comic books, this question actually matters, with real-world consequences unlike anything the Legion of Doom could have come up with.
Comic books are funny and exciting.
The Golden Age of Obama is disconcerting and worrisome.
Where’s Superman when you need him, we ask, thanking Heaven at least we’ve got Wonder Woman in Foggy Bottom keeping the whole world from going to absolute Hell.
Why is Dr. Steven Chu starting a trade war with China?
Though Tim Geithner has deservedly been receiving intense criticism lately for his perceived incompetence at Treasury, the Cabinet member we remain most concerned about is Dr. Steven Chu at Energy.
Dr. Chu should not be Energy Secretary: he is out of his depth in a vast, unwieldy bureaucracy. A Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Chu should have instead been installed in a Manhattan Project-style venture to research and produce some invention to make America energy independent. Just imagine if he had been given a lab, with unlimited resources, and all the staff and time he needed to work on one specific project: energy independence. THAT’S where Chu should be right now.
Not starting trade wars with China over carbon emissions.
The problem with Chus is not only that he isn’t a bureaucrat or a politician, but that his specialty is the rarefied world of physics, and not the nuanced and delicate PR game that is international relations, particularly in the Sino-American sphere.
China is buying vast amounts of American debt at a time when the American economy needs that Chinese bailout to afford the myriad bailouts of US corporations. We truly cannot afford China’s pique at this moment in time; we need them to keep buying debt, with trade measures as favorable to the US as possible.
So, Dr. Chu needs to step away from the microphone and cut carbon emissions from his future remarks. Talking about imposing tariffs on China when the American economy is weak amounts to Hoover levels of crisis mismanagement. Tariffs will not make anything better. They will only make things much, much worse on a global scale.
Because China is already saying American carbon tariff’s on Chinese goods will be met with an aggressive and sustained trade war, in concert with Chinese lawsuits through the World Trade Organization, since carbon tariffs would violate WTO standing agreements.
Dr. Chu, apparently, isn’t up to speed on the ramifications his remarks have globally. The Chinese have little patience for his on-the-job training.
And, frankly, there’s at least some in China (or Russia) who would use remarks like these, by someone like Chu, to launch a trade or other economic war against the US. All they are waiting for is an excuse.
And it looks like Dr. Steven Chu could very well be just the person to give them one.
John Boehner calls Democrats out for voting for Obama's Trillion Dollar Spending Spree, without reading it, but now complaining about what they passed in that bill
Remember, five weeks ago Obama/Pelosi/Reid rammed the Obama Trillion Dollar Spending Spree through Congress without a single Senator or Representative ACTUALLY READING IT.
One Trillion Dollars.
Zero reading comprehension.
What Chris Dodd snuck into that Spending Spree, on orders from Obama’s White House, is just the tip of the iceberg, people. 1,400 pages is a lot of room for all sorts of insanity like that authored by Dodd.
And Democrats couldn’t be bothered to read that bill before voting on it — but now feign outrage about what was clearly spelled out in it.
This is all so appalling, there isn’t even a word for it anymore. In The Golden Age of Obama, it’s just cromulent.
Senator Chris Dodd needs to immediately resign from the Senate banking committee – admits to lying about involvement in AIG bonuses
Chris Dodd admitted today that he’s been lying about his involvement in AIG’s bonuses.
Dodd wrote an amendment into Obama’s Trillion Dollar Spending Bill protecting bonus packages. He consistently and repeatedly denied doing this, up to this afternoon, but has now admitted his role, despite numerous lies to the contrary.
On top of Dodd’s involvement in the Countrywide Sweetheart Loan fiasco last year, it’s clear Dodd should immediately resign from the Senate Banking Committee.
He should be removed from the Senate, but we know that won’t happen unless Connecticut voters wake up and boot this greedy, corpulent, lying clown from office next year.
The very LEAST Democrats in Washington could do is force Dodd off any committees even remotely tied to banking or financial institutions. Having him sit on the Banking Committee is like having Oprah watch over your freshly-baked and elegantly decorated cupcakes. You have only yourself to blame when you come back into the kitchen to find frosting all over her face and empty wrappers strewn about the floor. “Me? I didn’t eat the cupcakes! This is an outrage!”.
“Me? I didn’t sneak an amendment into the Spending Bill no one read that caused this big mess! This is an outrage!”.
Oprah’s only a threat to various cheerful baked goods.
Dodd’s a lying snake serving his own personal vested interests at the expense of American taxpayers.
Neither should be trusted any further than we as individuals can throw them.
Mystery of the Day: With all the billions of Obama's Spending Bill coming to Illinois, why does the state need to raise taxes?
Here’s a mystery perhaps you could shed some light on as well.
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is calling for a 50% state tax increase, as well as doubling most state fees (such as the driver’s license fee, license plate fees, and fees for various other licenses statewide). This is on top of the recent county tax increase that made Chicago the highest-taxed city in the nation.
What we don’t understand is this: how could the state of Illinois be in such desperate financial straits when Obama’s Spending Bill supposedly pumped billions into the state, largely funding “shovel ready” infrastructure projects that have been planned for some time, and were previously budgeted at state or local government expense?
We’re not accountants or economists, but our thinking goes like this:
If the state of Illinois planned on spending, let’s just say, $3 billion on roads, bridges, or other construction projects in the next few years, and that money was budgeted by the state, but now Obama’s Spending Bill is instead funding those projects from federal coffers, then Illinois should suddenly have $3 billion freed up from its budget.
And $3 billion should be a low number, since the City of Chicago alone got $1 billion from the Obama Spending Bill, for use largely on infrastructure projects it had been planning anyway. Now the money to pay for those road crews will come from Washington, and not the City of Chicago’s accounts.
So, why the need for tax increases?
Where is the money going if it’s not mitigating the budget problems state and local governments claim to have?
We’re sure this sort of mystery’s happening in every state, but we’ll use Illinois as our example.
Let’s use this thread to piece together as much of the puzzle as we can. With your research help, we can locate the following:
(1) Illinois’ exact share of Obama’s Trillion Dollar Spending Bill
(2) Breakdown of what Illinois’ share is allocated to
(3) Illinois’ state budget and what it is allocated to
(4) Areas where Obama’s Trillion Dollar Spending Bill usurps projects originally budgeted by Illinois
(5) Net savings to Illinois now that the Obama Administration is paying for projects Illinois budgeted for
UPDATE: Here are a few links people suggested to try to unravel this mystery. One is to a site that supposedly tracks the Obama Spending projects, but when Illinois is pulled up, Chicago’s share of the pork is missing. Mayor Daley isn’t bothering to report it. This leads us to believe much more of Illinois’ spending is unreported on this site as well. Stimulus Watch.
This next link is to the 2010 budget for Illinois, signed by Pat Quinn. But, Quinn didn’t become Governor until after the Spending Bill was passed. So, we assume items included in Obama’s Spending Bill would already be missing from this new 2010 Illinois budget. Illinois 2010 Budget under Quinn.
What we think needs to happen is to set up a comparison between three or four documents:
(1) Obama’s Spending Bill, focusing on Illinois
(2) The 2009 Illinois state budget
(3) The 2010 budget that existed before the Spending Bill
(4) The new 2010 budget signed by new Governor Pat Quinn, post-Blagojevich, post-Spending Bill
With all of the above, we also need to consider the fact that Mayor Daley might not be the only official in Illinois who is hiding the true nature of spending projects from the public. There are many mini-Daleys throughout the state who follow Da Mayor’s lead with things like this.
We think this is important enough to use our spare time on for the next few days. If anyone has a better idea on how to solve the mystery that takes less time or would be easier, please chime in. We see clearly the reason this remains a mystery is that it requires so much effort to get to the truth that most people just give up.
Which is probably what Quinn, Obama, Tim Geithner, Pelosi, Reid, and others in Congress want everyone to do.
Corus Bank in Chicago on verge of failing
Corus Bank in Chicago is another of the Zombie Banks that are still rattling around, but have no hope of recovering, no matter how much federal money is pumped into them.
Is anyone aware of a tabulation or chart of all the banks that have failed in the last two years?
We’ve never seen that information all in one place. Here and there, banks like Corus fail, and it makes a headline, but then people forget about them. Having them listed all in one place would paint a better picture of what’s really going on here.
Corus blames the condo bust for its imminent demise. Many more banks in California, Florida, and the south will go down like Corus. The Chicago condo market never got as crazy as markets in other parts of the country, where real estate speculation and flipping went off the charts. So, if Corus is dying here, we can’t even begin to imagine how many banks centered in the real estate speculating hotspots will go under before the year is up.
What's Hillary Clinton Doing Today? March 18th
1145am – Meeting and working lunch with The Right Honorable David Milband, M.P., Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
3pm – Courtesy Call by Glen Gardner Jr., Commander-in-Chief of Veterans of Foreign Wars
330pm – Bilateral with His Excellancy Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Bahrain
Go, Hillary, Go!
Obama thanks himself for inviting everyone to yet another party at the White House last night
While millions of Americans scrape together what little they can for food, gas, childcare, healthcare, and rent, it’s party time at the White House almost every night. Last night, Obama hosted a St. Patrick’s Day party in honor of Prime Minster Cowen and his wife, which has been called “rambunctious” in most descriptions.
During his remarks, Obama’s teleprompter veered off course, mixing up his and Cowen’s speeches, so both looked equally foolish delivering the other’s speech.
Just imagine if this had happened while George W. Bush was President. The media would have been all over the fact that during this teleprompter glitch, Obama thanked himself for inviting everyone to the party at the White House. Bush would have been excoriated for something like that.
Additionally, toward the end of his remarks, Obama claimed Guinness “tastes different in Ireland” and that the Irish “keep the good stuff for themselves”.
When has Obama ever been to Ireland? Last summer, he went to London as part of his summer campaign swing through Europe, but we don’t believe Ireland was a stop on that particular Rainbow Tour. In 2006, he campaigned for his cousin Raila Odinga in Kenya, as a United States Senator, but it’s unlikely whatever flight he took to Africa stopped off in Ireland along the way. Previous trips he took to Pakistan and other places in his youth also would not have included layovers in Ireland.
So, when did he go there? When did he realize Guinness “tastes different in Ireland”?
Once again, this is the sort of thing the MSM would have been all over George W. Bush for, but Obama gets a free pass on.
