Oh, Mama!

He's done it again! Doubled down on a losing proposition! See Politics Daily and George Will for on target analysis of the SOTU which was available to the public, unlike the Vice President's recent meeting on middle class concerns which was a closed door affair, like so much in Democrat-controlled Washington these days. Whatever happened to Candidate Obama's promise to have health care legislation negotiations on C-Span? Didn't happen! Now he wants to freeze only some discretionary spending - approximately $15 billion and only after the upcoming elections. He criticizes Washington's long-standing way of doing business (under both Democrats and Republicans) and okays the opt-out of health care requirements for Nebraska. Imagine the daring of proposing jail time for persons who do not choose to buy health insurance! Dazzling - why not just send the miscreants to jail directly and save the cost of a trial! Now that the bloom is off the Obama rose, perhaps voters will once again allow themselves to see things as they are and not like some people - Reid, Pelosi and the president - wish things were. See Debra Saunders at RealClearPolitics . As the writer on Politics Daily would have it, listening to Obama on fiscal restraint is "as if we were being lectured on marital fidelity by John Edwards or Mark Sanford," not to mention Bill Clinton.

Who will watch the watchers?

See Charles Krauthammer's recent article on the Nixonian effort by the Big O's White House to marginalize and overwhelm Fox News by cutting them off from press coverage of the Administration. Heaven help us when a self-righteous liberal gets power and chooses to be illiberal!

Say, what?

This morning's news brought the startling announcement that the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the new president. How like that committee to give the prize to someone who is more like former President Jimmy Carter than most Democrats would care to think. The award this early in the Obama term says more about the Committee than it does about the president who has little or nothing to show for his few months in office, other than unapproved major proposals and numerous tax "avoidance" scandals among proposed candidates for appointive offices. He delivers a speech well, but seems to be less reliable without his best friend - the Teleprompter - which travels everywhere with this peripatetic president. He has made even spendthrift Republicans seem like pikers and seems moderate only by comparison to the most extreme members of his party. Oh, well, the country survived that other Nobel Prize winner and it will survive this one.

Life With Federal Father!

I read this morning that the new president is a Star Trek fan. Perhaps that accounts for his distant demeanor and far out ideas? At his age, will he have as much trouble as former president Clinton adjusting to life as a private citizen in January 2013? One wonders.

Happy Father's Day, President Obama!

What's the Rest of the Story?

The Washington Post reports that some of the Obama Administration economic advisers were paid by news organizations during the 2008 campaign. This information was released by the White House during the present weekend. National Economic Council Director Lawrence H. Summers received $34,000 from the Financial Times. This is, of course, interesting news for those who hold the view that the news media were biased in favor of the Democrat nominee. What the story does not say is whether the same activity occurred with Republican economics advisors. It would be interesting to know whether these news organizations had the same financial transactions with such advisors and, if not, why not. This was a "straight" news item with no analysis offered; will this same story rate the interest of other news organizations and the pundit class?

T'was Ever Thus...In the Pursuit of "Fairness"

The Democrats - under the stewardship of Reid, Obama and Pelosi - are at it again, i.e., showing their disregard for the Constitution in their recent efforts to provide a voting member for the District of Columbia. It is the case that the U. S. Constitution provides membership in the House via States and NOT the District of Columbia, but...oh well, the hearts of the Democrats are pure so never mind the Constitution, otherwise known as a minor sticking point to the portsiders who are in control these days.

The cognoscenti are aware that the longest lasting war in U. S. history - it continues today - is the War on Poverty which since 1965 has disgorged nearly $11 trillion; if that money had been given directly to the poor, not only would less have been needed, the poor would no longer be poor. The idea, of course, is the acquisition of power and its retention in the hands of true believing bureaucrats who really are less interested in solving a problem like poverty - as if government could solve it - and are actually more interested in their own employment. Job security requires that poverty continues and so it does. These must be the jobs that the President has pledged to save.

Now the Obamatons want to do for healthcare what their colleagues have done for poverty with a "down payment" of over $450 billion in their upcoming budget. Here's a thought for you: is it the case that the ever-increasing cost of health care has risen markedly in tandem with the invention of medicare and medicaid? Perhaps the idea is creation of more government jobs? By the way, 10 % of "new jobs" in the Obama plan will be government jobs, i.e., some 600,000. Is all that really necessary?

For those of you who are disturbed by these ideas, take comfort in the knowledge that for national Democrats the true measurement of their statist program is their good intentions and not the effect the implementation of those intentions have on the country.

Democrats: Cavalier Attitudes About Taxes

Now we know why the Democrat Party is so cavalier about taxes: they don't pay them if they can help it. This morning's Washington Post indicates that former Senator Tom Daschle (now Health and Human Services Secretary-Designate) paid $128,000 in back taxes just before he was nominated. Where was we heard this before? Ah, yes, new Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner had the same kind of problem, but he was confirmed 60-40 by the Democrats with only one RINO (Republican in Name Only) supporting the nomination. Back in the Bubba Administration, William Jefferson Clinton tried to insert two such persons into the Justice Department as Attorney General. Then, there is the altogether separate but identical problem of the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee: Charles Rangel. His tax trouble has gone almost unnoticed due to his power and incumbency. He's the guy who is primary in developing Congressional tax policy for the Democrats. Didn't they get Joe Biden's message? Come on, Tim, Tom and Charles; it's patriotic to pay your taxes!

What was that we were hearing about the so-called "Culture of Corruption" in 2006? People who actually DO PAY TAXES must be wary these days.