Big Bird is a one percenter!

Why in god's name are we still talking about Big Bird?

Apparently the president's reelection campaign thinks this is a winning issue, but it will backfire. Everybody loves Big Bird, but does he still deserve corporate welfare? This is an instructional example of Obama's penchant for crony capitalism.

It also demonstrates that there is no government program that he would cut, except for defense spending.

How can Obama rail against the one percent, and then turn around and seriously suggest that the very wealthy and well to do Children's Workshop still deserve millions of tax payer dollars?

Big Bird, Small President

At the end of fiscal 2011, Sesame Workshop and its subsidiaries had total assets of $289 million. About $29 million was held in cash and "cash equivalents," mainly money-market mutual funds. Another $121 million on the balance sheet was held in "investments." According to the accompanying notes, these investments included stakes in hedge funds and private-equity funds. It's unclear from the financial statements if Big Bird has ever invested in funds run by Bain Capital, founded by Mitt Romney, but no doubt Sesame would be welcomed as a client by many investment managers. 

So Big Bird likes to maximize revenues and investment gains as much as the next muppet. And now the President has made this adorable critter the symbol of federal programs that allegedly require eternal taxpayer aid, even if it has to be put on the future tax bill of today's pre-schoolers. Is that funny?

Maybe the president did spend Bill Maher's million dollars on pot? Getting stoned and watching Sesame Street probably inspires all sorts of whacky economic policies. Foreign policy too! The take away lesson is that it's ok to be a one percenter as long as Obama likes you. 

I think it says volumes about Obama's personality, and character flaws. Where were the president's witty retorts at the debate? Where was the super-genius? Instead the president slunk his spanked ass out of the debate, and now that he has Big Bird and his teleprompter he's laugh-a-minute tough guy.

What a coward.

We Are The 53%

After initially hearing about the occupodos claiming to represent the 99% (people who make less than $343,000) my reaction was "No you are not! You are the 47% who don't pay any taxes!".

So if you go on and do the math, that means the rest of us are the 53%. The people who actually pay taxes.

Apparently there is a burgeoning movement coalescing under the banner of "We Are The 53%". I get it. And in fact I am for whatever storyline is required to unravel the lies of the #OCCUPYWALLSTREET crowd. But let's be frank. The 53% is the Tea Party. It was the Tea Party that got out first to protest the bank bail outs, and to put an end to the Fed. The main difference is that the Tea Party blames the government for the bailouts while the occupodos blame Wall Street and the free market capitalism system that has made America great.

Let me go on to stipulate my own grand conspiracy theory surrounding the #OCCUPYWALLSTREET movement. It is not a grass roots movement inspired by sudden frustration as was the case with the Tea Party. It is part of a vast left wing conspiracy to get President Obama elected to a second term. It is no coincidence that the community-organizer-in-chief reignited the class warfare front with his business bashing rhetoric, and that Warren Buffet declared the rich should be taxed more, and that then college students, unemployed recent grads, and ancient hippies reliving their glory days, suddenly began to occupy ( camp - party - defecate ) public parks close to financial institutions with the support of unions and the ACORN infrastructure.

Everybody now knows, including the Presidents supporters, that the Emperor has no clothes, and so he has brilliantly orchestrated events to rev up his base. Not that his base was going to vote for the other team, but maybe they just weren't going to show up. Even better, maybe the #OCCUPYWALLSTREET astro-turf movement will get his base "to get in the face" of the independants that he will oh so desperately need.

But I could be wrong. Just say'in.

William Daley - Obama's Fat Cat Chief of Staff

The Chicago Gang continues to roll!

How odd.  Richard Daley vacates his mayoral seat so that Rahm Emmanuel can run, and then the Mayor's brother gets the Chief of staff gig that Emmanuel vacated. Wow!

It probably makes good sense for Obama though. After all, Wall Street donated more money to the Democrats in the 2008 presidential race than they did to Republicans, and now it's time to start thinking about 2012. With the Presidents approval ratings as low as they are, no one is going to believe in another miracle micro donation bonanza again, so it's time to go crawling back to Wall Street after two years of vilifying them and calling them "Fat Cats".

Yeah, his base will probably howl a little bit

A decision to bring Mr. Daley into the heart of the administration could further annoy Mr. Obama’s liberal base, who frequently accused Mr. Emanuel of encouraging the president to compromise on liberal principles to achieve legislative goals.

Mr. Daley, who was chairman of Vice President Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign, helped Mr. Clinton pass the North America Free Trade Agreement, which is blamed by many union workers and liberals for helping to move jobs overseas.

Mr. Daley is also the Midwest chairman of JPMorgan Chase & Co., who also serves as the bank’s head of corporate responsibility. If selected to join the Obama administration, his ties to Wall Street are among the elements of his background that would likely be criticized by left-leaning groups.

 But who cares? What are they going to do? Vote Republican?

This move along with some of the other White House organizational changes is a clear signal that the Kamikaze mission is over, and the name of the game right now is 'getting re-elected'.....for now.

The Empire Strikes Back

Well, it's not a reason to wish for a political defeat in November. The time is right to through the bums out no matter what the consequences. However we are reading more and more that a popular revolt, and a power shift in the House and/or Senate could mean that we witness an episode that might be called "The Empire Strikes Back".

More than a few people have predicted the possibility of a lame duck congress heading home for good would have nothing left to loose, and in good old fashion Chicago Style Pay-To-Play vote selling.

The Obama-Pelosi Lame Duck Strategy

party leaders are planning an ambitious, lame-duck session to muscle through bills in December they don't want to defend before November. Retiring or defeated members of Congress would then be able to vote for sweeping legislation without any fear of voter retaliation.

Then there is pork. A Senate aide told me that "some of the biggest porkers on both sides of the aisle are leaving office this year, and a lame-duck session would be their last hurrah for spending." 

Beware the lame duck

Leading Democrats are already considering this as a way to achieve even more liberal measures that many of their members dare not even talk about, let alone enact, on the eve of an election in which they face a widespread popular backlash to the already enacted elements of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda.

Obama's follow-on reforms are dead. Except for the fact that a lame-duck session, freezing in place the lopsided Democratic majorities of November 2008, would be populated by dozens of Democratic members who had lost reelection (in addition to those retiring). They could then vote for anything -- including measures they today shun as the midterms approach and their seats are threatened -- because they would have nothing to lose. 

This would be the political version of an Improvised Explosive Device (IED).  And we know they can be deadly yet effective.

Financial Reform: The Big Lie!

If liberals are good at anything, they are good at applying warm and fuzzy, mom and apple pie labels to issues. Usually the issues are so disconnected from the topics at hand that when reflected upon, the label makes no sense. Take the latest example. The battle cry is 'reforming Wall Street". And the state run media is all to willing to comply.

Federal regs set to restrain Wall Street risk

The legislation creates a new federal agency to police consumer lending, set up a warning system for financial risks, force failing firms to liquidate and map new rules for instruments that have been largely uncontrolled.

Leaving the White House for Toronto, Obama said the package will "help prevent another financial crisis like the one that we're still recovering from."

ummmm...not quite.

Bank stocks soared as investors appeared relieved that the rules were not as strict as they'd feared. Bank of America Corp. stock rose more than 2 percent, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. each posted 3 percent gains.

Again, not quite. This bill does very little at all to Wall Street. The real impact is to mom and pop Main Street. That's why the fat cat's got the market boost that they did.


The New Lords of Finance
Why Wall Street and Washington both like 'reform.'

The Democrats who wrote the bill are selling it as new discipline for Wall Street, but Wall Street knows better. The biggest banks support the bill, and the parts they don't like they will lobby furiously to change or water down.

Big Finance will more than hold its own with Big Government, as it always does, while politicians will have more power to exact even more campaign tribute. The losers are the overall economy, as financial costs rise, and taxpayers when the next bailout arrives.

A perfect example of how the label does not fit the bill (pun intended)

Let's also not forget the Senate's rendering of a "resolution process" for failing financial giants. This provision is ostensibly the reason for this entire exercise—to end the notion of too-big-to-fail banks and create a process in which regulators feel comfortable allowing failure.

Yet the discretion handed to the FDIC as the resolution overseer allows a replay of the AIG debacle, in which the company was used as a conduit to pay counterparties 100 cents on the dollar. The FDIC will now be empowered to do the exact same thing, except that it will be allowed to discriminate even further—with the discretion to give some creditors a total bailout while imposing losses on others. Think United Auto Workers versus Chrysler bond holders.

The bill being passed only makes it easier for the Chicago Gang to line their pockets and the pockets of their allies.

---

Il Duce Tries Again

Filed under 'you never want a serious crisis to go to waste '. The administration has used the horrific BP Gulf crisis to take over and control another industry. First the banks, then the car industry, etc. etc. and now the oil industry.

In a thinly disguised dictate that was supposedly recommended by industry experts, the dictator-in-chief issued a fiat that 'there would be no deep drilling or working' ( sung to the tune of 'There'll be no more toy makers to the King').

It's a difficult responsibility

That you accept from the Number 1 lawmaker, me

Have it known throughout the land from sea to sea

There'll be no more drilling in the sea.

Well, the president ran into a little problem this week. His attempt to dictate laws and regulations was stalled by one of those nasty checks and balances.

Obama's Moratorium, Drilled

In a remarkably pointed 22-page ruling, the judge made clear that even Presidents aren't allowed to impose an "edict" that isn't justified by science or safety.

Oil-services companies brought the case, which is supported by the state of Louisiana, arguing that the White House ban was "arbitrary and capricious" in exceeding federal authority, and Judge Feldman agreed. He noted that even after reading Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's report on safety recommendations (which included the ban), and Mr. Salazar's memo ordering the ban, "the Court is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium." 

and finally some justice for the lies perpetrated by the administration in their attempt to make the decision look science based rather than political.

The judge also went out of his way to express "uneasiness" over the Administration's claim that its safety report (which recommended the ban) had been "peer reviewed" by experts. Those experts have since publicly disavowed the ban, explaining that the ban was added to the report only after they had signed off on an earlier draft. White House green czar Carol Browner dismissed their complaints, saying "No one's been deceived or misrepresented."

But Judge Feldman directly contradicted Ms. Browner, describing the report's claim of "peer review" as "factually incorrect." Moreover, the Administration's "hair-splitting explanation" of what the experts did or didn't support "abuses reason, common sense, and the text at issue."

Obama is assuming the posture of a dictator. This is not the first example.

The American Mussolini

The Offer BP Could Not Refuse

While the damage that BP has and is causing in the gulf coast is horrific on so many levels, and while the images of the disaster are so hard to look at, somehow America is devolving into just another Banana Republic.  The rule of law no longer matters. Even though BP waived their protection from the 'liability cap' that was not good enough for the White House. They want the money! Just like Tony Mantana in Scarface, this administration has a style all it's own.

In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you force your ideology down their throats.

So when BP came to the White House for the 'meet' to finalize the deal, I'm sure they got an earful.

What you lookin' at? You all a bunch of fuckin' assholes. You know why? You don't have the guts to be what you wanna BP? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin' fingers and say, "That's the bad guy." So... what that make you? Good? You're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There's a bad guy comin' through! Better get outta his way! 

$20 Billion dollars later, the administration has access to an unlimited amount of funds, available to him for whatever he wants. Oh, he may have to launder it through several parties and hops to make it look quasi legit, but the unions will be involved, and they will make a lot of money too.

Obama's Political Oil Fund

BP has more than 600 claims personnel working to pay fishermen and others that have suffered economic damage. It has vowed to pay all "legitimate" claims and has worked through 20,000 of 42,000 submitted so far, at a cost of $53 million. BP has also promised it will not limit its payments to the Oil Pollution Act's $75 million cap on these damages, and last month it announced it would hire an independent mediator to review claims. Any claimant denied payment has the right to sue for redress under the law, which means BP has an incentive to get these payouts right.

By contrast, a government-administered fund more or less guarantees a more politicized payment process. The escrow administrator will be chosen by the White House, and as such would be influenced by the Administration's political goals. Those goals would include payments to those harmed by the Administration's own six-month deep water drilling ban. That reckless policy will soon put thousands of Gulf Coast residents out of work, but the White House knows that BP isn't liable under current law for those claims. The escrow account is an attempt to tap BP's funds by other means to pay the costs of Mr. Obama's own policy blunder.

and with the government in control?

Democrats are vowing this fund will be tightly crafted and used only for oil-spill payments. But only last week Democrats on Capitol Hill wanted to siphon money out of the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund—established in 1986 and funded by oil taxes to help clean-up spills—to pay for their extension of unemployment benefits. The history of such government funds is that they are always raided for politically favored purposes.

There is no 'lock-box'. The new arrangement assures that more locals will be victimized because payments that would have been paid by BP, will now go to Obama's political interest groups, and close allies (unions).

And what happened when some heretic stood up to speak the truth?

Apology to BP's Hayward triggers uproar

Representative Joe Barton, a major recipient of campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, triggered an uproar with his lengthy apology to Hayward for being the victim of a White House "shakedown."

State-run media is quick to say that the only way you could interpret actual laws and protections contrary to the presidents actions means corruption. The old adage that 'perception is reality' now applies to the law.

In addition, conservative Republican Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota was quoted as telling the Heritage Foundation think tank on Tuesday that the escrow account was a "redistribution-of-wealth fund."

I think that pretty much sums it up. It's never about the crisis. It's about the opportunity it represents. "You can't let a good crisis go to waste"

Whizzing on Wall Street

I have no pity for Goldman-Sachs. They danced with the devil, gave him a million dollars, and helped Obama get elected, and now the devil is coming for their souls. Goldman-Sachs is also the company that brought you Gov. John Corzine, the limo liberal millionaire governor of New Jersey who drove that state into a ditch.

On thursday the president kicked off his campaign to take over Wall Street with his signature style 'pass my legislation or we are all doomed' fear mongering battle cry. Just like the ones you saw in the health care debate.

President Obama's agenda here is not the rescue of the free market, it is a take over by proxy. The way the proposed law is currently structured the federal government has arbitrary discretion in deciding what Wall Street can and cannot do. This will not save the economy from the next swindle. The same retards who were equipped with the regulations to catch Bernie Madoff but could not, will now be equipped to line their pockets and be influenced without any checks or balances. The folks who surf porn rather than utilize existing regulations to catch the bad guys are suddenly going to snap into action. Right! The administration that pretends to despise lobbyists and special interests has just created a new market, and put a yoke on the golden goose. The cash cow (wall Street donations) that was key to his victory in 2008 will be key in 2012. Most would think that alienating Wall street is not a good idea, but this is a Chicago style takeover. His administration will be making the rules, and it will be pay to play. Wall Street will surely pay. The economy and the country is slowly looking more and more like the faux democracy of Russia.

I am not saying do nothing. In fact I truly believe that like health care the fix is simple and does not mandate intrusive government intervention by bureaucracy. Like health care the administration is once again making lofty rhetorical arguments, to which the bill does nothing to address.

back to basics on financial reform

Still, it took extraordinary forces to turn a subprime bust into a global financial crisis. The key forces were excessive leverage on and off bank balance sheets, and derivatives that allowed massive but opaque side bets on the future value of U.S. homes. And it was these two factors that magnified (and exported) the losses in the mortgage market; legislators should focus on them. Instead, both the House and Senate bills are packed full of scatter-gun regulations that owe more to the prejudices of legislators than to a rational assessment of what actually went wrong.

and the proposed bill does nothing about Fannie and Freddie.

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

By STEVEN A. HOLMES

Published: September 30, 1999

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Yet, while pretending that this take over of financial markets will help the middle class or the economy, it merely sets up a system where bribes and influence will be the only way to do business.  First you had the incredible expansion of Czars. Now we introduce the Wall Street Kommisar's! Ja Ja! 'чудесно '! Eh comrade!

You Lie!

Desperate times call for desperate measures I suppose.  In today's weekly address we heard the president spin a pretty picture of his health plan, but he had to play fast and loose with truths to do it.

Now, despite all the progress and improvements we’ve made, Republicans in Congress insist that the only acceptable course on health care is to start over.  But you know what?  The insurance companies aren’t starting over.  I just met with some of them on Thursday and they couldn’t give me a straight answer as to why they keep arbitrarily and massively raising premiums 

That's pretty disingenuous, or at least playing very stupid. Insurers that are losing money get their rate increases approved by state regulators. There is nothing arbitrary about it. And if it's massive, then it's massive because of state requirements that make demands on the insurance company.


The WellPoint Mugging
The brawl over rate increases is a preview of ObamaCare.

WellPoint's California unit, Anthem Blue Cross, recently informed nearly 700,000 individual insurance customers of premium increases of up to 39%. President Obama jumped on the announcement, claiming in a pre-Superbowl TV interview that the hikes were a "portrait of the future if we don't do something now."

Wellpoint's rate hikes are the direct result of the Golden State's insurance regulations—the kind that Democrats want to impose on all 50 states. Under federal Cobra rules, the unemployed are allowed to keep their job-related health benefits for 18 to 36 months. California then goes further and bars Anthem from dropping these customers even after they have exhausted Cobra. California also caps what Anthem can charge these post-Cobra customers.

This explains why Anthem lost $58 million in California on its post-Cobra customers in 2009. If WellPoint didn't raise premiums amid these losses, it would soon be under assault from its shareholders, if not out of business.

Over and over again there are examples of where the types of regulations that Obama wants to impose on everybody are already raising the costs of health care. Not reducing the costs.




In the weekly address he goes on to say

The proposal we’ve put forward would end the worst practices of the insurance industry, lower costs for millions of Americans, and give uninsured individuals and small businesses the same kind of choice of private health insurance that Members of Congress get for themselves

Not really. It will either raise costs, or put insurance companies out of business. He is hoping for out of business, because then the government will have to step in with the single payer plan.

What won’t change when this bill is signed this:  if you like the insurance plan you have now, you can keep it.  If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.  Because nothing should get in the way of the relationship between a family and their doctor.  

Not true either. He already inadvertantly revealed this lie a week ago at the health care summit he held at Blair House.

So much for "If you like your plan............."

on February 25th, the president admitted he lied about being able to keep your plan, if you like it.

Defining ObamaCare Down

One fact is that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that premiums in the individual market would jump by 10% to 13% in 2016 because the government will mandate that consumers buy richer benefits than they otherwise would. Mr. Obama eventually conceded that point but said these mandates are simple consumer protections. "Yes, I am paying 10% to 13% more because instead of buying an apple, I'm getting an orange," Mr. Obama said. "We want competition, we just want some minimum standards."

Whoop there it is........

So to paraphrase "If you like your apple, you'll have to eat this orange". Great. Thanks.

And finally he finishes with:

And so I ask Congress to finish its work.  I ask them to give the American people an up or down vote. 

To which I say yes! Do it! But do it now! Do it Next week! Don't wait until you've paid everyone off. Don't wait until you've threatened or leveraged people to change to votes against their conscience. This is yet another moment of naive bravado. Without more dirty tricks and more Chicago style corruption he does not have the votes, even though the democrats have openly gamed the system.

on reconciliation

It's no slam dunk. And hopefully in the end, this will be resolved and the will of the American people will be served, and my pollyanna view that "cheating cheaters never win" will be maintained.

No Show Jobs - Mob Style

With the audacity that would make Tony Soprano proud, the administration has been discovered yet again in their attempt to transform America's national politics into Chicago style politics.

WSJ: The Chicago Way

 &

Gangsta Land: ObamaCorps

Apparently 'no show' jobs are part of the recovery plan. I haven't seen it on state run media yet, but Fox News is reporting that the web site that Obama pledged to create so that it would instill confidence in the epic stimulus package is severely flawed. The numbers don't add up.

Congressman Blasts White House for Faulty Job Data on Government Web Site

The Democratic chairman of the House Appropriations Committee is demanding greater accountability from the the Obama administration after gross inaccuracies were found on a government Web site that tracks jobs purportedly saved or created by the $787 billion stimulus plan.

The site -- Recovery.gov -- is under fire for posting a number of jobs created in congressional districts that don't exist and for accepting unrealistic data from several reporting outlets.
For instance, the Web site reported that 30 jobs were saved or created with $761,420 of federal stimulus spending in Arizona's 15th Congressional District. One problem with the claim -- the state has only eight districts 

The site also lists 12 other non-existent districts in Arizona where jobs were reportedly saved or created. It also lists imaginary districts in at least three other states, including Oklahoma, Iowa, and Connecticut.

 Embarrassingly enough, the web site is still up and as of the time of this posting was still advertising bogus jobs and bogus expenditures in bogus congressional districts. I happen to have first hand knowledge that little old Rhode Island (li'l Rhody) happens to only have two congressional districts. However, the web site reports stimulus funds being spent in five Rhode Island Congressional districts.

There is no way that the administration is going to take the heat for this. I have been in business for over 20 years and there is one thing I know. When the numbers don't add up, blame IT. Those stupid computer geeks must have hosed the numbers." Why didn't finance tell the nerds not to show the 'no show' districts!" Somebody could potentially get whacked for this!

More Number Crunching: What is even more embarrassing is that they publish these numbers as if they are something to be proud of! Do they think we should be happy with the fact that each job supposedly created in Rhode Island cost tax payers $335,355? Does that sound good to any body? I am pretty confident that the jobs supposedly created are not six figure jobs and would not be worthy of a $335,355 investment by even the most aggressive speculator.

I know, I know; I can hear Tony Soprano now; "Don't worry aboud it!"

WSJ: The Chicago Way

I always enjoy Kimberley Strassel's column. I found today's to be particularly good.

'The Chicago Way'

She documents the Chicago style thug tactics and their targets.

• The Chamber of Commerce
• Humana
• Sen Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
• Rep Eric Cantor
• Fox News
  

I especially liked her use of the lines from the movie "The Untouchables". The column is good as it points out tactics and targets of the Chicago gang, but I think you can go further and connect the dots as to the vast and dark connections of this organization. You don't even need to grab a movie quote to illustrate the gangsta mentality that is in charge.

“If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard,”
- deputy chief of staff Jim Messina

 He said that during the month of August when the Town Hall meetings were in full gear, and being ignored or demonized by state run media. He meant what he said too! Prior to that the only violence had been some people trying to push through doors when halls filled up. Then, the SEIU started to bus in real live union thugs. Then things got messy. They would sneak in the back door, and then when the room was filled, they would lock the front doors. No opposition. There is one occasion caught on video where a black man who showed up to voice his opposition and was attacked by SEIU thugs. And a simple search of youtube show a few more incidents that you probably didn't see on state run media.

The SEIU is surely the muscle of the Chicago gang, but don't forget or under estimate the fanatic ideological wing of the organization, ACORN. These people successfully choreographed the AIG 'manufactured rage' protests with the  complicity of state run media. And I won't even bother posting links to the many video's of the various ACORN offices helping members of a '60 minutes' (of old) style sting, where ACORN employees were giving advice on how to avoid taxes and run an illegal prostitution business.

The media did not do their jobs in researching Obama's past during the run up to the election. Despite the infamous history of Chicago politics, the many politicians who have gone to jail, no one ever thought to ask "gee? how did this guy climb through the ranks and not get dirty?"

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you; The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy