We have to make some hard decisions to sustain and strengthen this recovery and the economy, because if we don’t it makes it that much harder to dig out of this mountain of debt that has been accumulated over nine years…

Wow. First off, what recovery? And that “mountain of debt that’s been accumulated over nine years” comment had to be crafted by her handlers as a sly way for her to cast the blame for the debt on George W. Bush. Stephanie tries hard to come across as a moderate Democrat, and seems to do a good job walking that line, but comments like this only serve to show that she’s just as interested in placating the left-wing fringe.

Most people like to tie changes in the National Debt around the neck of the President who happens to be in office at the time, but the fact of the matter is that it takes more than a President to drive up the debt or bring it down. Congress writes the bills that drive the budget, and they are also guilty of adding a multitude of unrelated amendments to bills to get their pet projects funded. The Senate and House leadership is just as culpable for the ballooning federal debt as any President, so let’s take a look at who has been running the show for the last nine years…

Over the last nine years — the time frame chosen by Stephanie in her comment — the national debt has increased by about $9 trillion (the graph above includes the estimated debt that will likely accumulate in the next four months of 2010). George W. Bush was in office for a little over seven of those nine years, and in his two terms the national debt grew by about $4.3 trillion. By the end of 2010 Barack Obama will have been in office a mere two years, but the debt will have grown another $4.4 trillion by that time.

But a what most Congressional incumbents seem to think is inconsequential is that Congress has been under Democrat control for much of that time as well, and the sharpest increases in national debt have occurred during the tenures of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

This is in no way giving a pass to the Republicans; they were spending like drunken sailors during the Bush years and squandered what was a golden opportunity to show the leftists that governing on solid fiscal conservative principles could do.

The stigma built by Obama and the Democrat leadership in Congress over the last several years is an albatross around Stephanie’s neck, and her polling numbers in this race show she is having a tough time distancing herself from that stigma. To give credit where credit is due, she has voted against some of the legislation that has built up that “mountain of debt” and is less popular here in South Dakota, but I would bet money that her votes weren’t cast before getting the approval of Nancy Pelosi after the Democrats made sure they had enough votes to get their way.

Challenger Kristi Noem is leading in the polls, 51% to 42%, and I would hazard to guess that has less to do with anything Kristi or Stephanie have said or done in this campaign. What I can’t get over is how the Democrats — and the media — just can’t get over blaming Bush for everything that’s wrong with the country today.

Numbers source.

Now, Patrick’s gaffe could be nothing more than a slip of the tongue, with him meaning one thing and something else coming out, or it could be a slip of the tongue that simply revealed what he really thinks about the political right.

When later questioned about his remark, Patrick predictably claimed “he meant that Fox TV host Glenn Beck should not have chosen the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech on its 47th anniversary to hold his “Restoring Honor” rally.” Kinda hard to make that stretch when listening to what he said.

I can’t help but wonder whether that explanation would be accepted so readily if Patrick were a Republican after making a similar comment. I kinda doubt it.

Crap.

As in what I said when I heard Obama’s poorly named “Health Care Reform” bill barely got the votes needed to pass it.

Crap.

As in what the politicians supporting this bill are full of and are spreading around thick. Example: Our Glorious President said last week that this bill will add “almost a decade of solvency to Medicare;” wonderful, but what happens after that? And does anybody else notice the irony in a statement like that being used to defend a program that will make Medicare look like a first-aid box by comparison? How long will Obamacare program stay solvent? And what new and bigger-still program will be proposed to extend Obamacare’s solvency when it’s suffered a few decades of expansion and three card monte at the hands of politicians?

They say it will ‘only’ cost just shy of a trillion dollars, but it will reduce the deficit by hundreds of billions in the first ten years. Bull crap. What they don’t tell us is that “$53 billion of the $118 billion “lower” deficit over the next 10 years comes from Social Security payroll tax revenues that result from the increase in wages that employers will offer employees instead of health insurance.” Horse hockey. But what about the burgeoning number of Social Security recipients that will be on the government dole in the next ten years? Seems like the CBO might have missed that little detail.

There’s also the matter of some $463 billion in cuts to the Medicare program over the next decade. While Obamacare essentially adds how many millions of people to the Medicare rolls? The cost to run Medicare isn’t going to magically shrink in the coming years; it seems like every day you hear something about some pharmacy chain or hospital or group of doctors that refuse to see any new Medicare patients because when they bill Medicare for services rendered, they either don’t get paid or get paid a fraction of the bill. It also looks like the Feds will just push some of those costs off to the states and make them worry about where it comes from. Can you say “unfunded mandate”? Last I heard there were already eleven states lining up to bring suit against the Federal Government once Obama signs this thing into law. (and what do you wanna bet that nobody in Congress or the CBO took legal costs into consideration.)

Crap.

As in what this bill is worth.

If you listen to the Democrats and the mainstream media, this bill is full of Sunshine and Rainbows and Puppy Dogs. It’s passage is important not only for the President’s Legacy, but it will also reduce the deficit, be revenue-neutral, cure blindness, eliminate hunger, cool the climate, slow the rise of the oceans, heal the planet… (sorry; different speech.) Meanwhile the Republicans counter with their own version of what this bill will accomplish, and paints a somewhat less rosy picture. Somehow I think the reality of the thing be somewhere in between, but as trustworthy as the Democrats have proven to be since taking control of Washington, I’d say the Republican version is closer to reality. The good that’s in it is more than outweighed by the bad in it. Like a pan of brownies made with all the best ingredients, but has had a half cup of dog crap mixed in. I don’t care how great the other ingredients are, you won’t catch me eating one.

Yup. Crap is the word.

Of course, it was a slip of the tongue or more likely a teleprompter miscue, but still… If it had been George W. Bush making a mistake like this, the media would be all over it, but again, our President can do no wrong. This guy is supposed to be the brightest bulb to grace the White House in centuries; shouldn’t he have caught that flub or at least corrected himself after he said it? And what about the adoring crowd? Was no one listening to what the man actually said and applying any critical thinking before cheering madly?

It seems the man is in permanent campaign mode, constantly trying to sell us something, even when polls show that we don’t want what he’s selling, and the facts show him to be dead wrong. Even Congressional Democrats are afraid to vote on it fearing a backlash come November.

Mrs. Obama… reportedly has a staff of 22 assistants. Yes, I said twenty-two. (Previous First Ladies’ dedicated staffs were in the single digits). Michelle’s little army includes a Chief of Staff costing $172,000 a year; a Deputy Chief of Staff at $90,000; a Director of Policy and Projects at $140,000; a Director of Communications at $102,000; a Deputy Director of Scheduling at $62,000; two Social Secretaries – mysteriously, one at $65,000, one at $64,000; an Associate Director of Correspondence at $45,000, an Assistant to the Social Secretary at $36,000, and more, in total consuming $6.3-million annually thus $25-million during her 4-year term. Not to mention a make-up artist and hair stylist.

Kennedy took the occasion of the scolding tone of President Obama to bring this up; when he said that a trip to Vegas wasn’t the wisest move “when you’re trying to save for college. You prioritize. You make tough choices. It’s time your government did the same.”

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black…*

*not a racist comment.

She has been using Air Force aircraft and personnel to jet back and forth between Washington, D.C. and her home in San Francisco, plus has made several overseas junkets (for who knows what)… But traveling alone isn’t much fun, so she has her usual entourage tagging along, plus any number of her family members, plus whatever Congressional delegation needs to come along, plus their own entourages, plus security…

And when asked about the extravagant use of taxpayer funds for travel, Pelosi’s defense is along the lines of, it’s all necessary for the person third in line to the Presidency. Can she justify all of the travel and expenses? Has she reimbursed the DOD for any of those expenses? If Denny Hastert had pulled the same stunts, would there be the near deafening silence from the mainstream media about it? I think not, on all three counts.

“Obama is a fine, very impressive person. He really is. Unfortunately, everything that he is doing in economics is exactly wrong. He is a crappy president,” Laffer said.

Dr. Laffer had a lot more to say in that interview about the state of the country’s economy and how the Obama Administration’s economic policy is affecting it. Although Laffer didn’t have much nice to say about the current policy, his is not your run-of-the-mill partisan mudslinging. He’s also written some scathing reviews of Bush Administration spending decisions, especially the bailouts in 2008. He may not be a totally unbiased source of info, but he is consistent in calling bad economic policy as he sees it. And he has some solid credentials backing up what he says.

President Obama told Diane Sawyer in an interview recently, “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” I would so love for him to be a really good president, but if he continues on his present course, I forsee him being more of a crappy one-term president.

Human Events Interview
“Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest Rates” — June 11, 2009, WSJ
Soak the Rich, Lose the Rich — May 18, 2009, WSJ
“How to Fix the Health-Care ‘Wedge’; There is an alternative to ObamaCare” — August 5, 2009, WSJ

With all that has been discovered about this ordeal and the guy behind it — Maj. Nadal Malik Hasan — it’s amazing that there is so much handwringing over whether to call it an act of terrorism or not. The media and the politicians seem to be going way out of their way to avoid stating the obvious, seemingly motivated by out of an over-developed sense of political correctness.

The good news is that he was denied the reward he was likely seeking from a ‘martyr’s’ death; he was shot four times, and survived. Even though to him, being held by infidels is a punishment worse than death, I’m not sure if that’s quite enough.

It was bad enough when the prize was awarded to Al Gore, who at that time was singularly undeserving of such an award, but Barack Obama? What has he done to deserve this prize? Nothing that I can think of, unless he leads a secret life of which the public is largely unaware (oh wait, we still don’t know much about what his work as the editor of the Harvard Law Review, nor do we know anything of the grades he earned at Harvard.) According to one Reuters article, he deserves it for “… offering the world hope and striving for nuclear disarmament”? I guess you could say that his naive striving for nuclear disarmament gives hope to some, like Iran, North Korea, China and Russia (who surely were all laughing in their sleeves at his “… dreams of a world without weapons…” while “… right in front of us two countries are doing the exact opposite.”)

The prize surely isn’t for his leadership at the nation’s capitol when it comes to bipartisan cooperation, nor for his leadership in his dream of universal healthcare… All of that has left the nation even more polarized than when he (mis)took the Oath of Office in January. And the prize can’t be for his leadership in the role of Commander in Chief, as troop morale is at an all-time low in Afghanistan, exacerbated by the lack of clear mission goals and confusing rules of engagement that leave them poorly equipped to even defend themselves in the face of an enemy unafraid to hide behind civilians…

But according to the Nobel Prize Committee, he gets the prize because, “Very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future.” So it’s all about celebrity. I laugh, as do many when they first heard this news. The only hope inspired in me by Obama is that his agenda for this country fails, and by the grace of God and the arrogance & incompetence of the Democrats in Congress, thus far it has.

Since the Nobel comes with a cool $4 million bonus, I wonder whether the Obamas will be inclined to “share the wealth” with the country. Something tells me that ain’t happening.

We warned of things to come, of the danger inherent in unwarranted government involvement in things not its proper province. What we warned against has come to pass. And today more than two-thirds of our citizens are telling us, and each other, that social engineering by the federal government has failed. The Great Society is great only in power, in size and in cost. And so are the problems it set out to solve. Freedom has been diminished and we stand on the brink of economic ruin. Our task now is not to sell a philosophy, but to make the majority of Americans, who already share that philosophy, see that modern conservatism offers them a political home. We are not a cult, we are members of a majority. Let’s act and talk like it. The job is ours and the job must be done. If not by us, who? If not now, when? Our party must be the party of the individual. It must not sell out the individual to cater to the group. No greater challenge faces our society today than ensuring that each one of us can maintain his dignity and his identity in an increasingly complex, centralized society. Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, galloping inflation, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite. Our party must be based on the kind of leadership that grows and takes its strength from the people.

— Ronald Reagan

The speech from which that quote was taken was given on February 6, 1977, but you’d think that he was looking through time to today. I guess what it really means is that the initiatives being promoted by Barack Obama and his sidekicks in Congress are nothing new; it’s all been tried before. One side note: Reagan referred “our party” two times in this quote, referencing of course the Republican Party. These days it seems as though the Republicans are trying harder to be the me-too, “Democrat-lite” party than anything resembling what Reagan envisioned. In trying to build the fabled “big tent” the party has abandoned anything resembling principled positions, running around with one finger in the wind and another somewhere else trying to woo one demographic or another. Reagan was a conservative in principle and in practice, something we haven’t seen in the leadership of the Republican Party for a good decade. Who will be this generation’s Ronald Reagan?

Why is it so difficult to understand that conservatism works every time it’s tried?