Worst of All

Obama is returning us to the bygone days of "guns and butter", punishing initiative and entrepreneurship in the flagging economy, appeasing our enemies, and betraying US allies. We have had leaders in the Oval Office who grew our government, notably Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, but we have never had a leader so hostile to the free market. Obama invokes "Wall Street"and "bankers"as calumny. This invective is unprecedented as previous leaders have always recognized that without a thriving financial sector, you can't have a thriving country. Raising taxes has never eased recession, only exacerbated them. Russia has been thrilled with Obama because they see him as an easy mark. North Korea and Iran are rattling sabers;Obama is showing weakness that invites aggression. Even the Iraq drawdown will feed Tehran's adventurism. The Czech Republic and Poland had agreed to host US missile defense against rogue states (i.e. North Korea and Iran again), even though Russia claimed this was provacative. Now, Obama will leave the US exposed to a first strike and our allies in the former Eastern Bloc at Russia's mercy. Another great American ally Israel is being sold out not by Secretary of State Clinton who is not calling the shots after all, but Obama. Carter seems to have won his second term.

The Obama Depression

The current economic turmoil may not have started under Obama, but he has done nothing to improve the situation and everything to capitalize on it. Obama bears heavy responsibility for the GSE (government-sponsored entity) mess of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac being the second largest recipient of their lobbying money when he sat in the Senate. Only Christopher Dodd received more and he was in the Senate much longer to get it. Obama thwarted more regulation of these bad loan mills and fought to extend credit to the uncreditworthy from the time he was a community organizer on-his mindset and manipulations put us in this sinking ship. From the beginning of the Presidential campaign, McCain should have pounded Obama and the Democrats on their attempts to prevent more regulation which sadly succeeded and their readiness to overlook outrages such as Franklin Raines more than one hundred million dollars in compensation when he chaired Fannie Mae. In the event, this misfeasance was barely mentioned, and when it was, McCain's attempts at educating the public about this issue were half-hearted. He never really tried to close the sale out of fear that if he hammered Obama too hard or focused too much attention on Raines, he might be perceived as or called a racist as both these scoundrels happen to be black. It is a shame McCain was feckless, because the country he could have led is now in the worst crisis her economy has faced since the Great Depression, repeating and magnifying many of FDR's mistakes. Dear pater, who is old enough to remember, says this is worse because even before 1929's Black Tuesday, Americans lived in lean times and could navigate leaner ones. Today's Americans are, in Dad's opinion, soft-in many cases, fat and spoiled to boot-and in his perception, are falling into the abyss of the new travail from higher heights and are not well-equipped to deal with vicissitudes the way the largely agrarian Americans who had recently turned back the Kaiser and defeated the Huns were. If you can't be without video-games for a few days or cable, try to survive a week on stale bread and beans. Your grandfathers did, and you may have to with our young Marxist leader determined to change us into his just socialist utopia.

Barrage Against Freedom

Eric Holder launched his trial balloon about an assault weapons ban today. No one should be shocked considering his anti-gun mania throughout his career but lovers of liberty should worry that Democrats and this administration are at war with the Second Amendment and with the First as well, with talk of re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine, local content requirements, or strictly enforced minority ownership requisites. Taken together, this assault on our most basic rights should be chilling.

Designed to Fail

Today a stress test is being imposed on major banks by Obama's government. It is purportedly meant to test the viability of these institutions in a worst case scenario. This is actually going to be the rationale the government will use to nationalize these major players even if they call it something else. The banks simply won't be deemed survivable without the strong hand of government behind them (controlling them). Cut-backs in Federal payments to medical providers and hospitals were also included in the Obama's plan. Care rationing is on the way. The "Great Leveler" is on the march again.

Spine Will Show | T A L K B A C K

Spine Will Show T A L K B A C K Note: This talkback appears in The Jerusalem Post in response to an op-ed by Charles Krauthammer which described Obama's evident timidity at dealing with America's adversaries in these early days of the new administration.

Cuomo Chastises Cantor

The son of the former Democratic governor of New York and ABC morning show flack Cuomo interrogated US Representative Eric Cantor this morning about Obama's speech-not interviewed-interrogated. His hostility was palpable. The dinosaur media has scored some remarkable victories in their war on Republicans-I well recall the tremendous GOP stalwarts, Al D'Amato, Rick Santorum, and George Allen (whose wound was somewhat self-inflicted but who I would still vote for in a heartbeat) who the media helped knock down and take out. Sarah Palin and Eric Cantor are in their sights now because of their evident appeal. Bobby Jindal will join them on the target list. The Democrats stick together and rally around their own; Republicans have a tendency to cut loose their own over the least perceived transgression. But Republicans have always behaved more like a political party and less like a gang than their opponents. Let's not let these gangsters, who wish to punish initiative and throttle enterprise, win.

Capitalism Under Siege

Obama was worshipped last night, not only by his Democrats but by the old-line media who have become his confederates in his effort to destroy free market capitalism and transform the nation we have known. Obama continued to rage against success-he can not wait to punish achievers-and railed against the banks and Wall Street. This rancor did not start with this President but sadly and surprisingly with his predecessor Bush who at the start of the plummet said we should not bail out "speculators". Many of the so-called speculators who began their suffering then were buy-and-hold investors-some of whom lived on dividend income, some who used dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs). Bush was lumping investors in with derivative-players. Obama also fails to make any such distinction-his inclination is to find wealth and take it from those who produced it and give it to parasites, the homeless, welfare recipients with the end of welfare reform he and his Democrats have ushered in with the aid of Collins, Snowe, and Specter. Obama will now use this crisis to his advantage to advance his national health plan. Will enough citizens raise enough of a stink with enough politicians to stop socialized medicine?