10.2% Unemployment? An Historical Perspective

Would someone please inform the Associated Press that a working knowledge of American history is essential for reporters attempting to cover the nation today!

Today's report on the (shocking!) jobless rate of 10.2 percent contains numerous egregious examples of historical cluelessness. And that's the most positive spin. A more negative assessment is that the AP writer and his editors know fully well that they are disseminating partial truths and mendacious inaccuracies.

The first problem occurs in the lead sentence: "The unemployment rate has surpassed 10 percent for the first time since 1983 -- and is likely to go higher."

This is not quite true. During the Clinton years the unemployment data were tweaked to separate those who recently lost their jobs from those who have given up looking for work. Before 1994 all were lumped together. So to be accurate, it must be said that the 1983 unemployment number was about 7.5 percent BETTER than today's report! The AP hides this contraction in plain sight a little later in its report:

Counting those who have settled for part-time jobs or stopped looking for work, the unemployment rate would be 17.5 percent, the highest on records dating from 1994.

It should also be noted that a percent of the work force today represents a lot more people than in 1983. And vastly more than 1933, which is the time-line you would have to travel to see unemployment data comparable to what we are seeing now.

Reporter Christopher Rugaber wastes no time in committing his second error: the second sentence. He echoes White House spin as fact.

Nearly 16 million people can't find jobs even though the worst recession since the Great Depression has apparently ended.

Yes, the Obama faithful are claiming the recession is over by massaging the numbers for the 3rd Quarter by ignoring the fact that Cash for Clunkers and the first-time home-buyers credit, both fully subsidized by the taxpayer, created enough of a bump to make it appear that the economy is on the mend. Government cannot spend us into prosperity when the private sector cannot obtain financing from banks wary of government meddling. The reporter's willingness to accept the Geithner/Obama spin with no qualification -- "apparently" is not a qualification, it's acceptance -- is poor journalism.

The reporter does not adequately explain to us why the economy shed 190,000 "net" jobs yet some 600,000 more Americans are out of work:

The Labor Department said Friday that jobless rate rose to 10.2 percent, the highest since April 1983, from 9.8 percent in September. The economy shed a net total of 190,000 jobs in October, less than the downwardly revised 219,000 lost in September, but more than economists expected.

The jump in the jobless rate reflects a sharp increase in the tally of unemployed Americans, which rose to 15.7 million from 15.1 million. The net loss of jobs occurred across most industries, from manufacturing and construction to retail and financial. That tally is based on a separate survey of businesses.

It isn't so much of an explanation but acceptance of the government's use of the lesser figure.

But Rugaber does gives us some humor as he quotes Dan Greenhaus.

"It's not a good report," said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for New York-based investment firm Miller Tabak & Co. "What we're seeing is a validation of the idea that a jobless recovery is perfectly on track."

Jobless Recovery. Another innovation from our current administration.

The fourth egregious lack of historical context occurs as Rugaber does not do a followup on this next quote:

"You need explosive growth to take the unemployment rate down," Greenhaus said in an interview Thursday.

The economy soared by nearly 8 percent in 1983 after a steep recession, Greenhaus said, lowering the jobless rate by 2.5 percentage points that year. But the economy is unlikely to improve that fast this time, as consumers remain cautious and tight credit hinders businesses.

In 1983 President Ronald Reagan twisted the arms of a Congress controlled by Democrats to lower tax rates and open up domestic energy production. An economic boom began that, even though tempered in 1986 by higher tax rates when the Progressives in Congress struck back, continued largely through the '90s.

Instead, we see the Bush tax cuts about to disappear next year, and new rounds of tax hikes in the pipeline as Obama and the Progressives push for expensive new programs on health care and energy.

But the AP's economics writer leaves these facts undisturbed and his younger readers in the dark.

So you have to ask: Is the AP treatment by accident or design?

Either way, it's disgraceful and unworthy of a once great news-gathering operation.

The truth of our national economic crisis is buried near the end of the article:

October was the 22nd straight month the U.S. economy has shed jobs, the longest on records dating back 70 years.

There are records that go back beyond 1939, but apparently the reporter does not want to use them. He doesn't even use "1939" as a benchmark. My guess is that he doesn't want to remind anyone that we are in "Great Depression" territory.

But we are.

The Prophet Obama Says We Have Sinned

Those of you who have studied the health care reform bills and have spoken out against them have sinned.

So says the Right Rev. Barack Hussein Obama.

"There are some folks out there who are actually bearing false witness," he said Wednesday. He peppered his remarks with the "sins" of his political opponents: "lots of misinformation," "extraordinary lies," "all fabrications."

I'm not sure what President Obama was hoping for when he held a "telephone town hall" with members of mostly the squishy religious left, but he is increasingly sounding like a desperate man.

If "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel," then it is quite possible that "religion is the last refuge of the incompetent politician."

In agreement is Victor Davis Hanson, who reports that there is "something creepy about the sudden invocation of Christian morality by the president to galvanize support for his state-run health care plan, as if his opponents are suddenly to be seen as somehow selfish or even un-Christian. This is an unfortunate, counter-productive tactic ..."

Hanson cites four very level-headed reasons for saying this. I guess my reaction is a bit more visceral, or perhaps less level-headed. As a Christian I am deeply offended when a man who is heavily in the tank for abortion rights and the abortion industry tries to pass himself off as Mr. Morality, and at my expense!

I am deeply offended when the president continues to claim that he has never spoken out in favor of a single-payer (government) health care system when there is video of him, on at least two occasions, saying exactly that! This is called "telling a lie" and it is covered by the commandment against false witness, in case Mr. Obama doesn't know this.

I am deeply offended when the president continues to tell the American people that "if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan," when according to FactCheck.org (and others) this simply cannot be true.

In fact, there is so much the president said in his 40-minute program that there is no possible way I can express the depth of my revulsion at a president who is obviously co-opting Christian terminology and symbolism to cynically push his political agenda. It is an agenda that has little to do with compassion or health care but much to do with expanding government power into the private lives of every American.

Jesus did not once say, "Render unto Caesar so that he can provide health care for the unfortunate."

He did speak of an individual Christian's responsibilities: "For as often as you did this for one of the least of my brothers, you did it for me."

I will be judged by the Almighty for what I have done or failed to do in my individual choices, with my time, talent and treasure. I will get no brownie points for coercing my fellow citizens to do good works by raising their taxes or supporting new laws that would force them to bow down before an almighty government.

The Church may well insist on a preferential option for the poor as a policy for church activism. Our Republic has no such constitutional provision, and should it be given one it will no longer be a Republic.

That, in my view, is the essential creepiness of this latest Obama tactic.

Truth May Get You on a White House List

The protests at Town Hall meetings are not authentic gauges of American opinion. They are manufactured, according to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, aka the Director of the Joseph Goebbels Institute of Information. He claims that polls show the American people are perfectly content to be led without question by The One.

Yeah, right. Show us those polls, Bobby.

The video clips you have seen showing our president advocating a "single payer" health care system -- a fancy way of saying Government Health Care -- but that it would take several years to phase it in: you didn't really see what you saw. You didn't really hear what you heard. White House "Ministry of Truth for Health Care Reform" director Linda Douglass, formerly of ABC, has told us, in a 3-minute video, that we have been fooled by people with computers who know how to clip and splice videos.

Yeah, right. (The videos in question were unedited and quite lengthy).

Then there is this, posted on the White House official blog site, from a Truth minister named Macon Phillips, who is asking that Americans rat out their fellow countrymen:

Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things."

Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions.

[SNIP]

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Can you imagine the howls from the Left had the Bush White House posted something like this?

We complain that our congresspersons don't read the legislation, and won't talk about its specifics, and when we do read the health care bill and share our findings publicly, we are accused of being "disinformation peddlers" (liars) and now the White House wants to compile a database on us.

Good golly, Miss Molly!

Who are these people?

What is really scary is that the mainstream media takes its cue from the White House, more often than not accepting without question the spin from the various official spinmeisters.

All we have left is the truth, but will that be enough?

Always the Health Care Demagogue

President Obama and his "team" are promoting health care reform principally by demonizing doctors, the rich, and Republican members of Congress. He continually uses the "straw man argument" setup when he declares, "Some say that we should stick with the status quo, but I say ..." when no one is making that argument at all.

In his press conference Wednesday night, the president claimed that doctors are so fixated on making money that they will routinely prescribe unnecessary surgeries (he cited tonsillectomies) rather than pills (allergies). He does the medical community a great disservice in saying so, and he twists the facts all out of phase with reality. Pediatricians might advocate removing the tonsils of a child who has repeated problems in that area, but he (or she) will refer the patient to an ear, nose and throat specialist, who in turn might well enlist the services of a surgeon to do the actual operation.

Profit to the pediatrician? None. Unless, of course, Obama is suggesting that there are professional kickbacks being paid. That is something that, as a member of the Chicago school of politics, he undoubtedly has much more experience than the rest of us. Still, you think someone -- like an insurance company -- would have discovered such a nefarious practice and would have raised a big, public stink.

No, the probability is that doctors advise surgeries because they believe them to be in the best interest of their patients. And therein lies the danger of ObamaCare: he wants to take this kind of decision away from trained medical professions and put it into the hands of an "expert" in Washington who will render a decision based on regulatory guidelines and budget numbers.

Obama will demagogue doctors because the public's perception is that they are rich, elitist and driven by profits. Except for your own doctor, of course, who you know to be a caring human being, and you would hate to lose. But lose your doctor you may under ObamaCare as everything is on the table about how care is administered.

The president continues to push for a tax surcharge on the "wealthy" of America, while Democrats in the Congress fret that this might include some of their small business political supporters. It is fitting that they should worry since you do not have to be a very large business owner to run into the $280,000 floor on the surcharge, not to mention the 8 percent payroll tax you will incur if you do not offer your employees a government-certified health care plan.

The politics of "soak the rich" has always worked. The "us versus them" of class envy stirs the populist fires of the would-be socialists who think that their lives would be perfect if only those damn rich would share!

But not even America's rich have enough money to pay for ObamaCare, whose initial costs of $1.5 trillion are just the beginning of the cost to the American people and the American economy.

Finally, let's talk about Obama's Republican bashing. First he declares that "there are those who want to stick with the status quo," and he then will specifically point to Republicans. These GOP members, for all their past faults, are in the unenviable position of having insufficient numbers to do more than beg for their views to get a hearing. Between the hard politics of Pelosi and Reid and a mainstream media that would rather demonize Republicans than actually report what they are advocating, the GOP can do little more than point out that, if Congress will only allow two choices -- the status quo and Obama's Big Health Monstrosity -- then the better choice is to stick with what we have.

What we have is not perfect, but it is still the best health care system on the planet. Could it be improved? Absolutely, but not in the direction that ObamaCare will take us. Socialized medicine has never worked well, and what he has proposed will incorporate all the worst elements of government command and control.

The Republicans have some good ideas on health care reform. Unless you do your own research, you probably won't hear them.

Obama's main opposition right now are the Blue Dog Democrats, the congressmen who were elected from conservative districts across the country. They are looking for political cover, and thus negotiations are ongoing. My guess is that the Blue Dog Democrats will accept a couple of "compromises" with the president (which will be ignored later, or will be irrelevant to the big issues) and will give him his "victory." Then they will proclaim themselves to be tough, fiscally responsible public stewards who went head-to-head with The One and prevailed, assuming that you and I are just preoccupied enough, or stupid enough, to buy their act.

The Blue Dogs are a mighty thin reed for us to pin our hopes of defeating ObamaCare. We cannot for a day let down our guard and our opposition. ObamaCare, aka HR 3200, is a fatally flawed bill that deserves to go down in flames. A few cosmetic amendments will not make it look or smell any better once it becomes law.

This is why Obama is not attacking the Blue Dogs, but Republicans. The political strategy is brilliant. If the Blue Dogs cave, Obama gets his health care bill, government control of one-fifth of the economy. He wins big.

If the Blue Dogs don't give in, Obama will claim that the Republicans delivered the fatal blow, and with every economic disaster that takes place in the next 15 months before the 2010 elections he will tell Americans that he tried to save our economy with health care reform, but the Republicans would rather see American's jobless and without health care.

And if we are preoccupied enough, or stupid enough, to buy his act, we'll elect another Progressive Congress in 2010 and the march to socialism will continue.

Joe Knows Bankruptcy - On An Intellectual Level

Our ever-brilliant vice president today on the need to spend trillions on health care reform:

“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said. “Well, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’

“The answer is yes, I’m telling you.”

So we go bankrupt without health care reform?

There is no logic here. This is "burn the village to save it" government lunacy, designed to hoodwinked the weak-minded into supporting structural changes in the way we live so that government gains total control of our lives.

We may not yet be economically bankrupt.

But Biden, Obama and the Progressives in Congress have shown that we are morally and intellectually bankrupt in Washington, D.C.

And only an election will fix that.

UPDATE -- Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf, testifying before the Senate Budget Committee today, refuted White House claims (lies) that passing health care reform will save money. As reported in The Washington Post:

Instead of saving the federal government from fiscal catastrophe, the health reform measures being drafted by congressional Democrats would increase rather than reduce public spending on health care, potentially worsening an already bleak budget outlook, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this morning.

At last, someone with a calculator and a fully functioning brain.

When Fiscal Insanity & Incompetence is Your Sales Pitch

What is the biggest knock on Barack Obama's presidency thus far?

His out of control spending.

So how is the president going to push his Big Government Knows All health care plan?

By citing out of control spending.

No kidding.

This is so outrageous that it deserves a good Fisking. Here's what he said in New Mexico today, plus commentary:

May 14 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries. “We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

All of this is true. (The best lies are coated with truth, like rancid hot dogs slipped into buns of fresh, wholesome goodness.) The deficit spending is unsustainable. In fact, China has already begun ignoring our 30-year Treasury offerings in favor of the short-term stuff. The interest on our debt will soon come to over $1 trillion a year, which even we and our kids together can't pay off.

Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”

That's what fiscal conservatives of all stripes have been hollering since last fall, the cries of which the president has turned a deaf ear. Suddenly he's a true believer? He not only refused to hear these arguments when the stimulus bills were before Congress, he said there wasn't enough time to even discuss the issue (or read the legislation).

The president pledged to work with Congress to shore up entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare and said he was confident that the House and Senate would pass health-care overhaul bills by August. “Most of what is driving us into debt is health care, so we have to drive down costs,” he said.

Now we are getting into Fairy Tale Land, the land of the Midnight Mendacity and the Lie at High Noon.

What is driving us into debt is Big Government, run by Big Progressives like Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, George W. Bush, Tim Geithner, Hank Paulson, Ben Bernacke, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, John Murtha, John McCain, et al. In fact, there are very damn few people in government right now who seem to "get it." You cannot run budget $1.8 Trillion budget deficits, four times last year's "monster," and survive.

But health care is not the culprit. Most people are paying their health care premiums. Most private health insurers are doing just fine. Doctors and hospitals are making money. Pharmacists and pharmacies, plugging right along.

Who isn't doing well? Government-run health care, Medicare. It's a mess. It's always been a mess, and Part D, introduced in 2004, made it worse. In fact, every time the government intrudes itself into health care, the situation gets worse.

Yes, there are people who don't have health insurance. By law they cannot be turned away at emergency rooms, and to emergency rooms they do go. Just ask someone who works there. Yet many of these people are in transition. They do not have health insurance now. They will at some later point.

The point is: You do not wreck the best health care system in the world by turning it over to the one organization -- the federal government -- that has proven totally inept at running even a fraction of it. You don't wreck the health care of all 300 million Americans so that you can feel good about giving crappy health care to 40 million.

Barack Obama knows this. He doesn't care.

He's awfully glib with the Big Lie. He created the very conditions of runaway deficit spending and collapsing currency that he is now trumpeting as the need for taking over 14 percent of the American economy.

This is shameless.

And evil.

And if you are stupid enough to believe the lies without checking out the facts, you deserve what is coming to you.

Obama & Co. Try to One-Up Magical Trevor

The bad news on Social Security/Medicare was released yesterday. That should tell you something.

First, was there anyone with half a brain left that didn't know the news would be bad? Except for the 1930s and '40s, when the program was new, the outlook for Social Security has been unremittingly bleak, but no one did anything about it because it was FDR's sacred cow. (In truth it was more like Magical Trevor's cow, but that's another story.)

Second, if the Obama administration doesn't wait until Friday to release this report, then you know that it's part of the news they want you to see. All truly bad, embarrassing news is released on Friday or even Saturday when no one is paying attention. If they want you to notice this report, it's because they are using it to score political points, to advance an agenda. So, therefore, you must ask yourself ...

... What is the agenda?

Health care.

Forget the obvious horse manure about how the "recession" and "falling tax revenues" are killing Social Security and Medicare. That's the administration spin, via Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Treasury's Tiny Tax Cheat Tim. You'll find it admirably spun, in lap-dog fashion, by Reuters today.

You want the truth? Can you handle the truth?

Social Security and Medicare are zombie programs, living off of today's tax receipts. Medicare is already upside down, meaning it pays out more than it takes in. Social Security revues are, for the moment, adequate to handle expenses notwithstanding the economy and unemployment. What is not happening, and what has never happened, is that there is a Social Security Trust Fund where the government has been storing up all those billions of dollars of excess contributions over the decades.

The money was put into Treasury bills. For us simpletons, that means the government spent the money!

The T-bills are paper. IOUs.

So when Tiny Tim says that the "liquidation of Social Security assets" will begin sooner than expected, in 2016, seven years from now, he's a lying bastard. There are no assets to liquidate, unless he's referring to the IOUs which are not assets, but government liabilities. This lie is bad enough, but the agenda requires more!

New HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, recently of Kansas where she raked in campaign cash from Tiller the Killer, declared that she and President Obama can save Social Security and Medicare.

"The only way to truly slow Medicare spending is to slow overall health-care spending through comprehensive and carefully crafted legislation," said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, another trustee. "This report makes it clear. Reform can't wait."

Backers of the health overhaul effort agreed.

"We cannot solve the problems in Medicare without addressing the crisis that plagues our entire health-care system," said John Rother, the executive vice president of AARP, an influential group that represents older Americans.

Do you see the agenda? Now understand the lie:

Between Social Security and Medicare, there are unfunded liabilities -- projected future debts -- of over $90 trillion. Not billion. Trillion.

Yesterday we were told that the Obamatrons could squeeze $2 trillion in health care savings over a 10-year period by implementing such measures as the use of health information technology, care coordination, disease management, and “evidence based” medicine (whatever that means). All we have to do is "trust" them by rolling over for universal health care, which we are told, will require more taxes and more control. Also certain limitations on the types of health care available to the infirm and elderly.

That $2 trillion is a long way from $90 trillion.

According to the Heritage Foundation,

Spending on Social Security and Medicare already totals more than $1 trillion annually, and accounts for more than one-third of the federal budget. Recession or no recession, entitlement spending is on track to double by 2050 and tax rates for all Americans would have to double if the programs are not fundamentally reformed.

To his credit, George W. Bush tried to reform Social Security during his presidency. The Democrats said no way, and he gave up trying.

Now the Democrats are saying, give us total control of the health care industry and we'll solve all of Social Security and Medicare's problems.

They know this is impossible, but they think we are stupid and desperate. And gullible.

Please prove them wrong.

Confirmation: Unemployment Numbers 'Improved'

Suspicions were correct. After going through the numbers, the federal government included 66,000 "hires" to make sure that the unemployment picture "improved" for April. Private sector unemployment rose by 611,000, and it will be adjusted upward next month.

Most of these are census workers who won't actually make money until the census begins.

There is a scientific term for this, if I can remember it. Oh, yes.

Total BS.

The Morality of Green Lies to 'Save the Planet'?

A Sunday morning contemplation: Is is now okay to lie to your neighbors to get them to do something you want, if you know that they would never go along with you if they knew the truth?

How would you answer that?

Well, you might say, it would depend upon the circumstance.

You might tell your terrified neighbor that the tornado had already passed by and it was okay to come out of the storm cellar, when in truth the tornado was on its way, but it was because you knew a rising river of water was coming that would surely drown him. He would be better off taking his chances running with you.

But, you protest, this is a rare situation you might never see in your lifetime.

Exactly. In most situations I have a moral duty to warn others of danger, but I also have a moral duty to tell the truth. My neighbor's assumption should be that I am telling the truth and, if so, he has a moral duty of conscience to heed my warning out of self-preservation. However, what if I am a frequent liar, and he knows it? What if I have bent the truth so many times that he cannot take at face value anything that I tell him?

Then I have become an unreliable neighbor, unworthy to be called a friend. He has no moral duty of conscience of listen to me. My usefulness to do good is seriously impaired because my moral sense is flawed.

This is the situation Americans find themselves in with those environmentalists and politicians who want to impose unprecedented new taxes and regulatory rules on our use of energy. They claim to perceive a danger in global warming, but since they have not convinced most of us -- polls show that only about 30 percent of Americans care about the issue -- they are now more than willing to lie to us.

For our own good, of course.

Today's New York Times features an article with the fascinating title, "Seeking to Save the Planet, With a Thesaurus." This is a technique not unfamiliar to the Times as mendacity for the public good is a longstanding editorial policy, but they are refreshingly candid in this report about it.

WASHINGTON — The problem with global warming, some environmentalists believe, is “global warming.”

The term turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes, according to extensive polling and focus group sessions conducted by ecoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington.

Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”

EcoAmerica has been conducting research for the last several years to find new ways to frame environmental issues and so build public support for climate change legislation and other initiatives. A summary of the group’s latest findings and recommendations was accidentally sent by e-mail to a number of news organizations by someone who sat in this week on a briefing intended for government officials and environmental leaders.

Don't you just love the euphemisms? "New ways to frame environmental issues and build public support" is a fancy way of saying "twist the truth about the environment and con the idiot voters."

"Moving away from the dirty fuels of the past" really means "pray for a solar power miracle while you huddle in the dark with no heat and no money left to pay for it if it were available."

But wait, there's more:

Environmental issues consistently rate near the bottom of public worry, according to many public opinion polls. A Pew Research Center poll released in January found global warming last among 20 voter concerns; it trailed issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists. “We know why it’s lowest,” said Mr. Perkowitz, a marketer of outdoor clothing and home furnishings before he started ecoAmerica, whose activities are financed by corporations, foundations and individuals. “When someone thinks of global warming, they think of a politicized, polarized argument. When you say ‘global warming,’ a certain group of Americans think that’s a code word for progressive liberals, gay marriage and other such issues.”

The answer, Mr. Perkowitz said in his presentation at the briefing, is to reframe the issue using different language. “Energy efficiency” makes people think of shivering in the dark. Instead, it is more effective to speak of “saving money for a more prosperous future.” In fact, the group’s surveys and focus groups found, it is time to drop the term “the environment” and talk about “the air we breathe, the water our children drink.”

“Another key finding: remember to speak in TALKING POINTS aspirational language about shared American ideals, like freedom, prosperity, independence and self-sufficiency while avoiding jargon and details about policy, science, economics or technology,” said the e-mail account of the group’s study.

This would be hilarious if it weren't so dangerous. Shared American ideals like freedom, prosperity, independence and self-sufficiency are 180 degrees away from the future that ecoAmerica and its congressional allies want to lead us.

Under their draconian proposals, you will lose your freedom to heat and cool your home as you wish. Instead they are proposing a "smart grid" that will monitor our individual and collective power usage and will dial us back when "the greater public good" requires it.

Their proposals for taxing energy use would add between $3,000 and $4,000 per household in immediate energy costs, and this is according to their own friends at MIT. Is this prosperity? They promise "green jobs" but the experience in Europe, which has cap and trade, is that for every green job created, two to three old jobs disappear? Again, is this prosperity?

Independence? Self-sufficiency? Only if you act now and get yourself off the grid! If you can afford it, that is. Get yourself geothermal heating and cooling, install wind generators and solar panels, and have backup generators standing by with a large underground tank of fuel to power them. Know, however, that you will be considered an energy outlaw for attempting to be independent because you are not cooperating in the effort to save the planet. Your backup generator will be a CO2 emitter, but without it, you will experience periods of no power. Your only choice will be to sacrifice your independence for the expensive security of the People's Grid.

I would love to be totally independent, but I realize that this is a myth as long as I desire modern conveniences like electricity, cable TV and the internet. What I will accept is to get these things in voluntary association with others, purchasing them from private companies that must compete to earn our business, and our trust. What I definitely do not want is for the almighty federal government to take over these businesses, in effect or in fact, for my alleged benefit.

Even if I believed that the planet needs saving -- a ludicrous idea -- from CO2, a natural component of our atmosphere, I would balk at the cost. Why should I, because I am an American, be forced to sacrifice my freedom and lifestyle when there is no freakin' way that my counterpart in India, China or Egypt, or Russia, is going to be making a similar sacrifice?

If we speak truth, instead of ecoAmerica's mendacious tripe, we must say that there is no proof, merely conjecture, that the planet is in peril. There is no scientific consensus that this is so, merely a cabal of people, many who have flimsy claims to the title scientist, who have a self-interest in promoting an ideology of change that will enslave and impoverish a once proud, free people. And we know that they will say anything to trick us into believing their lies.

Confronted with the evidence that there is serious truth twisting taking place, the New York Times resorts to the old "but they're doing it too!" defense.

Opponents of legislation to combat global warming are engaged in a similar effort. Trying to head off a cap-and-trade system, in which government would cap the amount of heat-trapping emissions allowed and let industry trade permits to emit those gases, they are coaching Republicans to refer to any such system as a giant tax that would kill jobs. Coal companies are taking out full-page advertisements promising “clean, green coal.” The natural gas industry refers to its product as “clean fuel green fuel.” Oil companies advertise their investments in alternative energy.

Robert J. Brulle of Drexel University, an expert on environmental communications, said EcoAmerica’s campaign was a mirror image of what industry and political conservatives were doing. “The form is the same; the message is just flipped,” he said. “You want to sell toothpaste, we’ll sell it. You want to sell global warming, we’ll sell that. It’s the use of advertising techniques to manipulate public opinion.”

Well, what did you expect? When moral standards fall for one group, they tend to fall for others.

But some of the opposing rhetoric is true. Cap and trade will kill jobs. It will not only kill jobs, it will kill people. It will affect agriculture; there is talk of limiting the size of cattle herds, and the type of livestock farms permitted under CO2 emissions rules. There are proposals to limit the use of artificial fertilizers which are produced by burning natural gas. This will reduce crop yields, increasing food costs and decreasing food supplies. Grazing in the grass is a gas, baby, can you dig it?

The Global Warming-Climate Change movement wants you to believe that humanity is responsible for every environmental change, and that Government is the Only Solution to save the planet. This movement, so closely allied with the Progressive/Liberal/Marxist axis that it is indistinguishable, has no faith in Nature's God, upon whom our Founding Fathers put great trust, but only upon Collective Action of The People.

I trust that God, who warned our forefathers in faith that "Thou shalt not bear false witness." It was a good rule for thousands of years and it's a good rule now. If God is God, it always will be.

Even if ecoAmerica and the New York Times do not approve.

Smoke & Mirrors: A Fake $100 Million Spending Cut

My last post included a graph that shows the past and projected deficits of the federal government. That was yesterday.

Today we learn that the $100 million budget cut search ordered by President Obama -- in itself a tiny drop in a mighty big bucket -- is even less than it appears.

Mr. Obama is asking his cabinet secretaries to look for $100 million in cuts in the growth of next year's budget and (get your duct tape ready) this is so the money can be used for other necessary projects!

In short, there is no $100,000 spending cut. Period. End of story.

It's all kabuki theatre, focus group tested and bounced off a behavioral psychologist for good measure.

Even if the cuts were real, they are inconsequential. Ask liberal economist Paul Krugman, in the New York Times:

Let’s say the administration finds $100 million in efficiencies every working day for the rest of the Obama administration’s first term. That’s still around $80 billion, or around 2% of one year’s federal spending.

The Associated Press, in an article entitled, "Spin Meter: Saving Federal Money the Easy Way,"

Cut a latte or two out of your annual budget and you've just done as much belt-tightening as President Barack Obama asked of his Cabinet on Monday.

The thrifty measures Obama ordered for federal agencies are the equivalent of asking a family that spends $60,000 in a year to save $6.

Obama made his push for frugality the subject of his first Cabinet meeting, ensuring it would command the capital's attention. It also set off outbursts of mental math and scribbled calculations as political friend and foe tried to figure out its impact.

The bottom line: Not much.

Okay, how much is not much?

For all the trumpeting, the effort raised questions about why Obama set the bar so low, considering that $100 million amounts to:

-- Less than one-quarter of the budget increase that Congress awarded to itself.

-- 4 percent of the military aid the United States sends to Israel.

-- Less than half the cost of one F-22 fighter plane.

-- 7 percent of the federal subsidy for the money-losing Amtrak passenger rail system.

-- 1/10,000th of the government's operating budgets for Cabinet agencies, excluding the Iraq and Afghan wars and the stimulus bill.

The President and all his men have calculated that the American people are dimwits, that we cannot distinguish between large numbers and even larger numbers.

To me, the most frightening prospect is that they may be correct.

Transparency in Government, You Bet

They promised this would be the most transparent administration in American history. Most of us assumed that this meant that we'd know how every dollar was spent, and the details behind every policy enacted.

Silly us.

How about transparent lies?

Biden credits stimulus for fire station funded under Bush

You can read the details for yourself but the meaning is clear. We, the People, are stupid hicks with no long-term memories and a fondness for flim-flam artists.

Since most of the stimulus money isn't going to hit until 2010-11, you can understand why they would send out "Vice" President Joe Biden, congenital liar, to take credit for someone else's pork.

UPDATE -- 11:25 p.m. Thursday, April 2, 2009 -- Did you know that Recovery.gov, the Administration's new website on which it has promised to document transparency and on which, so far, there is nothing to see, cost the U.S. taxpayers a cool $84 million? Senator Tom is less than impressed with the results.

More Geithner Equivocation

An interesting conversation on Capitol Hill, as related by The Washington Post:

In testimony before the House Financial Services committee that just adjourned, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner just had to defend his institutional takeover plan against charges of radicalism.

"Do you realize how radical your proposal is?" Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.) asked.

"It's not radical. . ." Geither began, before Manzullo interrupted him.

"You're talking about seizing private businesses and you don't consider that radical?" Manzullo replied, his voice rising.

Manzullo is trying to get Geithner to give details of the plan -- that's where Geithner got stung before -- but Geithner doesn't have them yet.

If the plan were not radical, Manzullo said to Geithner, "you would have answers to some of my questions, such as, what size business would be subject to this?"

Simply incredible.

Let's Play Another Round of 'Bashing AIG'

Don't play their game.

Whose game? The government "progressives" who want you to hate AIG -- and thus by extension all those who deal with big money issues. Or more simply, they want you to hate the rich!

Right now Barney Frank (a national disgrace rapidly working himself into worldwide competition) is livid over $165 million in bonuses paid by insurer AIG to its employees. Barney is the blocking back for President Obama, who this morning called the bonuses an "outrage" and pledged that the feds will do everything legally possible to stop the bonus payments.

AIG has received about $170 billion in bailout funds.

A few key points to keep in mind:

1. The bonuses are required by the employment contracts of those who merited the bonuses. It is the price an insurer pays to attract and keep competent help. It would be a breach of contract -- a violation of the law -- not to pay them.

2. Frank claims "these bonuses are going to people who screwed this thing up enormously." That is pure bullshit! AIG is an insurer. It is in trouble because it must pay claims to banks on insurance contracts for investments they made that went bad, many of them piss-poor bundled mortgage investments that were created because Barney Frank and his cronies in Congress, and at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, forced lenders to make loans to people who were never going to make good on repayment. If Frank were honest, he would have to resign from Congress for it is his failure, and his continued coverup, that is most egregious.

3. Mr. Obama knows all of this, and doesn't care. It serves his purpose to have a national scapegoat. It draws your attention away from the other things he is doing, or getting ready to do.

4. If we are going to hunt for bedrock principles upon which to stand, then we never should have bailed out AIG, or any of the other financial institutions, in the first place. That was not the position of Barney Frank at the time all this was happening. It is not his position now. Who the hell knows what Mr. Obama's position was at the time all this began (he wouldn't commit)? Who the hell knows what it will be tomorrow, or next week?

5. Barney Frank says: "Maybe it's time to fire some people. We can't keep them from getting bonuses but we can keep them from having their jobs. ... In high school, they wouldn't have gotten retention (bonuses), they would have gotten detention." That rhetoric is designed to inflame the public, which is mad as hell already at the whole mess, but it sheds no light on the truth of the matter, which is that Barney Frank wants to get his grubby, greasy fingers inside the bowels of the American banking system.

Please don't fall for this game. You don't have to like the big banks, and you don't have to like or admire the rich. Just realize that you could take every dollar of wealth away from the rich and powerful, distribute it equally among all the rest of us -- like that will ever really happen, sure! -- and you will have a country in chaos that will not be secure, happy or productive.

Ban bonuses, make executives afraid to make decisions to incent the help, and you will reduce American business to the same mediocre level of efficiency that you will find in your average government-run health clinic. If you want to kill the capitalist geese that laid the golden eggs that created the wealthiest economy in the history of the world, let Mr. Frank and Mr. Obama continue to call plays from the progressive playbook that got its start back in the FDR administration.

And then we will have true equality. The equality of the equally miserable.

Master of the False Choice

This administration may do things clumsily, but in rhetoric it is the master of the false choice.

A timely example, from today:

Obama, at Tuesday's education event, rejected criticism that he is trying to do too many things at once, citing three predecessors who managed to juggle challenges on many fronts --Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy.

"President Kennedy didn't have the luxury of choosing between civil rights and sending us to the moon. And we don't have the luxury of choosing between getting our economy moving now and rebuilding it over the long term," he said.

Mr. Obama added that Roosevelt had to fight the Depression and World War II at the same time. No choice.

Not exactly true, for either president.

President Kennedy most certainly had the luxury to choose between the moon shot and civil rights, because other than a bit of rhetoric, he didn't do anything about it. (As a U.S. senator, JFK actually voted against an Eisenhower sponsored Civil Rights Act in 1957!) The Civil Rights Act of 1964 came after his assassination, with LBJ and a majority of Republican lawmakers shaming the Democrat party, which at the time was Southern dominated and not nearly so broad-minded, into going along. This is not to say that JFK was incapable of doing two things at once. He was vastly more competent than our current president and most certainly understood the necessity for across-the-board tax cuts, a strong defense, and an expanded space program that challenged the American imagination and employed a great number of private sector firms.

As for FDR, Roosevelt had the luxury of fighting the Depression for seven or eight years before the clouds of the Second World War gave him the "out" that he so badly needed on the economic front. Remember, FDR took office in 1933. World War II became a back-burner issue for FDR in 1939-40 as he pushed a reluctant Congress to help arm Great Britain. He lost the luxury of a choice on December 7, 1941, but the very act of war caused Roosevelt to declare to insiders that he was no longer Dr. New Deal but Dr. Win the War. The war finally brought the nation out of the Depression, not government manipulation.

Mr. Obama uses the rhetorician's tactic of setting up a false premise knowing that most people don't think fast enough -- or know enough about history -- to realize its absurdity.

ABC News Discovers an Obama 'Mischaracterization'

The impervious media wall shielding Mr. Obama is being to show signs of cracking. ABC News' blog The Numbers has examined the numbers the administration is using to promote its push for universal health care and is saying something astonishing!

President Obama’s kicking off his health care reform today in the worst possible way: with a mischaracterization of data.

“The cost of health care now causes a bankruptcy in America every thirty seconds," Obama said at the opening of his White House forum on health care reform. The problem: That claim, based on a 2001 survey, is simply unsupportable.

Who said diplomacy was dead? The proper word, reporter Gary Langer probably knows, is not mischaracterization, which I think should be hyphenated. The word is fabrication. It is stretching the truth completely beyond recognition.

But at least it's a step in the right direction, and perfectly understandable given ABC's -- and other MSM outlets' -- past unwillingness to question the president too intensely. There's more to the report.

The figure comes from a 2005 Harvard University study saying that 54 percent of bankruptcies in 2001 were caused by health expenses. We reviewed it internally and knocked it down at the time; an academic reviewer did the same in 2006. Recalculating Harvard’s own data, he came up with a far lower figure – 17 percent.

A more recent study by another group, approaching it another way, indicates that in 2007 about eight-tenths of one percent of Americans lived in families that filed for bankruptcy as a result of medical costs. That rings a little less loudly than “one every 30 seconds.”

If you do the math, one medical-expense related bankruptcy every 30 seconds would mean over 1,050,000 each year, which is about the amount of all bankruptcies for all causes filed.

Maybe this is what Mr. Obama meant by greater transparency: finally people are beginning to see through his soaring rhetoric.

Mendacity Alert!

The Mendacity Meter went off this morning as I was buying my double ham, egg and cheese croissanwich combo. On the radio I heard The Obamessiah Himself declare that working families will have less trouble dealing with their bills starting April 1 because the president's new tax cut is going into effect.

Static crackle. The Mendacity Meter needle rocked forward. I knew that my brain was in danger of exploding and I had forgotten my emergency duct tape. But I took a couple of deep breaths, the news guy on the radio started talking about the stock market, and the pressure in my head went back to normal.

Why did the meter go off? First, what is taking place starting April Fool's Day -- there are no coincidences -- is not a tax cut. Repeat: It is not a tax cut. It is a change in the withholding rates on workers. There have been no changes in the tax code. On April 15, 2010, unless Congress actually changes the tax rates between now and then, you will owe exactly the same amount of taxes on your 2009 income that you would have had not the withholding rate changed.

But Dave, you say, 95 percent of us were promised a tax cut, and Mr. Obama says this is it.

Well, if this is what he meant, either the president does not know what a tax cut is, or he is lying to you. I don't know how it can be said any other way. He's either ignorant or evil. I'll let you decide.

The reason "they" can get away with this is that most Americans over-withhold on their payroll deductions, which means they get a refund when they file their taxes. Back when I used to help educate people on such things, I would call it giving the government a short-term, no-interest loan. That's really pretty stupid, but there are professionals who actually encourage such behavior. If you are over-withheld, you do not have to fear the results of Mr. Obama's faux tax cut.

But if you are one of the smart people who would rather owe the government $50 at tax time, you may have an ugly surprise awaiting for you a year from now. Better do some recalculation, else this "tax cut" may bite you in the behind.

This isn't tax advice, by the way. Not my gig. Just a brotherly word of warning from someone who pays attention to his Mendacity Meter.

Jive Talkin' Just Isn't a Crime

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, is not one of the Bee Gees.

But he sure does a lot of jive talkin'.

And I don't mean it in a good way.

More Mendacity on Capitol Hill

What is it about the concept of "principles" that is so difficult for Congress to understand?

Most of us would be very grateful if our elected representatives would actually stand for something. Freedom or tyranny. Capitalism or collectivism. Morality or licentiousness. One side or the other, where ever that happens to be. Vote that way. Sponsor legislation that way. Stand up for what you really believe.

Then we can evaluate whether you represent our views, and we'll vote to keep you or toss you out on your ass next election so that you can pursue your agenda outside of government.

My ire is raised this morning by a couple of paragraphs in an Associated Press report on the progress of the Pork-a-Palooza package, which reflects the sad state of things on Capitol Hill. The first paragraph:

Democrats also upheld a so-called Buy American provision that requires projects financed by the measure to be built with domestically produced iron and steel.

Hmmm, I thought, when I read this. The Democrats are bucking their own president on this one. (Obama has warned that the provision could trigger a trade war.) Good for them, sticking up for their beliefs, I thought. Much too prematurely. The next paragraph:

But with Obama voicing concern about the provision, the requirement was changed to specify that U.S. international trade agreements not to be violated.

In other words, Democrats can claim they want to "Buy American" but the reality will be that nothing will change. It's a sham designed to give them cover come the next election period.

My opinion on this subject isn't the issue.* What is at issue is this stupid Washington game of playing us all for ignorant, gullible suckers who will believe whatever they happen to want to tell us. This mendacious habit of playing everything right down the middle so that anything can be justified.

Spineless.

*My opinion? The Buy American provision was never serious since we've shut down most of our steel-making capability in this country. We couldn't provide the product if we wanted to. However, we never should have agreed to these stupid trade provisions in the first place that crippled our own steel industry. It was short-sighted and dangerous. Solution? Require that a percentage of U.S. iron and steel be used, and work to increase that percentage. Meanwhile, return to the negotiating table and get our steel industry back.