Michigan "Investment"

I just had to post this... It's official. Michigan's economy stinks (that we've known for quite some time) and "investing" in job creation measures is a misguided waste of taxpayer money.

"Death Panels" and Sarah Palin

The large, complex, and mysterious healthcare bill absolutely HAD to get passed before the August recess, according to the President and the congressional leaders. And then something wonderful happened - Democracy. Aparently the American People cared about this issue much more than they cared about the bailouts, or the stimuli, or Medicare Prescription Drugs, or NCLB. All those uninspired, lathargic Americans started showing up in droves to object and voice their distrust of the government taking over healthcare.

They realized that don't want nationalized, socialized, "single payer" (whatever the label-of-choice is today) healtcare. I have plenty of uninsured friends and relatives, and yes, they all want healthcare. They just don't want it to look like the thier last trip to the DMV or the Social Security office. Since there aren't any real details of the plan that even our master orator of a president can describe in any kind of detail, they assume that's what they're going to get. And can you blame them?

Everything the government does is 3x more difficult and less efficient than it needs to be. Our president even admitted as much in one of his off-teleprompter moments.

The most telling sign that the big-government liberals are losing this battle is that they refuse, for the most part, to acknowledge that the uprising of protest at town hall meetings around the country are made up of real people with real concerns. They dismiss it as Rush Limbaugh clones or Sarah Palin kool-aid drinkers. They don't actually engage in real debate. I'm no dittohead, in fact I really don't like Rush's tactics. Buy I don't think anyone in the media today that strike a chord in the conservative base than Rush does. He doesn't dictate to his listeners what to think, he reflects it. And he knows how to get them engaged in the process. He reminds them of what they truly believe. Rush didn't invent or program their objections, but he probably inspired them.

As for Palin, she has made a magnificent case on her facebook page that is worth reading. It's even footnoted. Did she write it herself? Probobaly not. But regardless of who wrote it, I've yet to see any from the brilliant Obama cabinet that is even close to this level of detailed and specifocity. It's all flowery rhetoric. Sarah Palin, in some ways, is a pariah, and easy target to the left and a political leper to the right. But she really doesn't seem to care. I, for one, am glad she's on our side.

Fluffy rhetoric meets reality of being POTUS

War on Terror -
It's a wonder what a good dose of reality in the form of several months of intelligence briefings can do.

While AG Holder seems to be moving towards prosecuting CIA professionals who, under the Bush admin (of course), harshly interrogated al-Qaida leadership, President Obama has gone one-better by dramatically expanding the Evil Bush Administration policy to have armed drone attacks on al-Qaida people inside Pakistan without first obtaining authorization from the Pakistani gov't.

The two men seem to have divergent opinions on whether looking back or looking forward best serves our Said the AG to Newsweek recently, "I hope that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president's agenda, but that can't be a part of my decision." September 10th, anyone?

It will be interesting to see whose opinion reigns, as Holder marches on towards investigation and prosecution of career CIA pros who successfully executed the Bush administration's plan to kill the leadership of the organization responsible for the 9/11 attacks. I hope our new Decider will remember who the boss is and stand up for national security.

Stimulus -
I cannot possibly say it any better than my man-crush, George Will, did at the conclusion of his most recent column:

"At the June 29 White House briefing, press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked, with reference to health care legislation, if the president's pledge not to raise taxes on couples making less than $250,000 is "still active." Gibbs answered: "We are going to let the process work its way through." What is your guess?"

More on GM

As expected, the government is incapable of "owning" GM with out it's members using that ownership for political advantage.

In this clip, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) confirms the inevitable. You can bet that if a Republican used political connections to get a friend and/or donor's GM dealership restored it would be the leading story on MSNBC. Dispicable. Thanks to JB for supplying this link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thR-lVuztIY

I'm back...

I stayed away for a while, but some recent headlines prompted my return. As this is my first blog, I'm still trying to find a balance between posting snippets and in-depth posts (obviously). I'm starting with snippets!

GM Bankruptcy - As I predicted, all that money that we poured down the rat hole that is GM is now gone forever. All it did was postpone the inevitable, and at a huge taxpayer cost, present and future.

Failure of "Stimulus" - Amazingly, sprinkling a trillion dollars willy-nilly over our nation like you're Pacman Jones in a Vegas Gentleman's Club isn't the answer to jump-starting our economy. Don't believe me, just listen to Obamaphile Warren Buffet (who, by the way is a genius when endorsing Obama, but gets zero coverage on a story like this), and our esteemed Loose-Cannon-in-Chief, Joe Biden.

Sotomayor Nomination - As a pro-life Catholic, of course I am against her nomination. But as a pragmatist, I realize this nomination came not from Obama as much as from the American people last November. To the victors go the spoils. I only hope that it energizes the apathetic pseudo-conservative voters that voted for non-specific dreams of "hope", "change", and "optimism" rather than their core beliefs of less government and support of human life. We shall see... But the media's double-standard never ceases to astound. When Bush 43 nominated Miguel Estrada to the circuit court, Dem's filibustered (nearly unprecedented in lower court judicial nominations)and killed his nomination, saying that his life experience as a minority immigrant was irrelevant to his qualifications - he was "too conservative for the second highest court in the land". Really?!? The imminently racially sensitive People for the American Way called him "a latino Clarence Thomas." Nice. Meanwhile Sotomayor's states that an Hispanic woman can be more judicious than a white male of the same qualifications, and anyone who might suggest this to be a racist statement is immediately branded a Rush Limbaugh drone.

Do as I say not as I do (Part 1)- Why are liberals afraid to say what their true intentions are? During the campaign, Obama has said that a single payer (read: "100% government run") healthcare system would be his ideal (read: "utopian") outcome. But he knows that country will never buy into such an absurdly liberal concept. So now he wants to make a quasi-governmental entity to compete with private insurers. Hmmm... As it is currently being sold, most agree that most customers will move toward the government-run option, driving out private competitors one-by-one until we have - you guessed it - 100% government run healthcare. So why not just say so to begin with? And why is "liberal" a label that is avoided at all costs, while "conservatives" wear their label as a badge of honor? Say what you will about Dubya - at least when he said something you pretty much knew he meant it.



Do as I say not as I do (Part II) - "What we are not doing — what I have no interest in doing — is running GM." Really? Meanwhile, GM is being called to testify to congress defending their decision to eliminate dealerships. Meanwhile, Obama has promised Detroit mayor Dave Bing that he supports GM's headquarters remaining in Detroit. Meanwhile, the administration is bragging about how it is influencing GM's operations. Hmmm... sounds like running GM to me.



If you think that our liberal leaders don't want to or aren't planning to run the entire healthcare system you are naive bordering on myopic.

This train is bound for glory... Redux

Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates. This is change?

Gates, while maybe not a 180 degree turn from Obama's stated positions, is at least a 135 degree turn. Obama has railed against the Bush doctrine ad nauseum, but has retained the man responsible for the turnaround in Iraq, including the troop surge that he so vehemently detested. This implied endorsment of the Bush defense department's performance in Iraq will never be treated as such by the libs - instead it will be a "thoughtful selection based on his experience and expertise"

Barack Obama on Hillary:

March 2008: “What exactly is this foreign policy expertise? Was she negotiating treaties? Was she handling crises? The answer is no.”

January 2008: “It’s what’s wrong with politics today. Hillary Clinton will say anything to get elected... She’ll say anything and change nothing.

Obama Campaign Statement in December 2007: An Obama White House would not need to take advice from “someone whose ideas were more in line with those of President George W. Bush” than with Obama’s. “Barack Obama doesn’t need lectures in political courage from someone who followed George Bush to war in Iraq.”

Many of these comments were made during that critical time in the primary contest where the Obamaniacs were in full anti-Hillary mode, calling for her to drop out of the race and accusing her of trying to destroy Obama by continuing the primary, despite the forgone conclusion that Obama had already won, in the hopes of destroying Dem hopes in 2008 for her chance to win in 2012.

December 2008: "She possesses an extraordinary intelligence and toughness, and a remarkable work ethic" He added that his new team must “pursue a new strategy that skillfully uses, balances, and integrates all elements of American power: our military and diplomacy, our intelligence and law enforcement, our economy and the power of our moral example."

Sounds to me like Obama is the one who will say anything to get elected.

And I haven't even gotten to Tom Dachle and Bill Richardson yet. Someone please explain to me how this is moving forward.

Let them die.

As much as I hate to admit it, I have been somewhat on the fence about the Big Three Bailout, for purely selfish reasons. Due to my pure fiscal conservative roots, I am generally against any government intervention in the markets, but the direct impact that bankrupcy of GM, Ford, and Chrysler would have on an already beaten-down Michigan economy gave me pause.

But then I came to my senses. This industry is the posterchild against a bailout like this. These companies have a long history of mismanagement, squandering of almost religious customer good will over their asian competitors, historic levels of inefficiency, and complete and enduring lack of vision (not to mention a string of mind-bogglingly unsustainable union contracts). To reward them with another $50B dollars on top fo the $25B we gave them a year ago is madness. We already dump billions of good dollars after bad into an organization that continues to fail miserably, year after year, by nearly every possible measurement. It's called our education system.

The truth is, GM bankrupcy will be painful in the short term, but actually much better in the long term. Reorganization under Chapter 11 would allow them to invalidate the smothering union contracts that they were bullied into, dissolve unneeded brands and eliminate dealerships, broker deals with their suppliers, and still retain the vast majority of their manufacturing capacity and market share.

George Will (in the top two thinkers of our generation, by the way) summed it up perfectly here.