Author: McQ

I mentioned last week that there was a narrative building which could be quite detrimental to the Obama administration. That narrative started with the British press, in a snit about the treatment of British PM Gordon Brown during a visit to the White House, noting that the administration seemed “overwhelmed”. Supporters claimed that was normal […]

Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, said this the other day about the possible effects of all of the spending the Obama administration was doing and planning: “What you’re doing is buying into the notion that if we just print some more money that we don’t have, send it to different states — we’ll […]

A group of economists asked to assess the efforts of both Obama and Geithner were none too impressed: U.S. President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner received failing grades for their efforts to revive the economy from participants in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey. The economists’ assessment stands in stark contrast with […]

Both Camille Paglia and Howard Fineman give an assessement (although not presented as a 50 day assessment). Paglia says, “free Obama from his advisors“: Yes, free the president from his flacks, fixers and goons — his posse of smirky smart alecks and provincial rubes, who were shrewd enough to beat the slow, pompous Clintons in […]

They yelled, they screamed, they hopped up and down on one leg and told us how bad this 410 billion dollar spending bill was and how it was “business as usual’ (something they should certainly know about) that increased the spending level 8% and was full of 9,000 earmarks. And they condemned the Democrats and […]

What is going on with the Charles Freeman nomination, and is it an indicator of a overwhelmed administration losing control? Who, exactly, is in charge there? Frankly, approaching 45 days into this administration, the transition process, at least as it pertains to critical nominations, has been an unmitigated disaster. But it is the Freeman nomination […]

Patterico does it by producing a 2006 poll: The difference, of course, is instead of 51% of Democrats telling a polling company they wanted Bush to fail, an influential conservative came right out and said it about Obama. The point for the left? You can quite pretending you’re witnessing something never seen before and climb […]

Barney Frank has gotten very full of himself. So full, in fact, that his memory isn’t working as well as it probably should: House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is pressing state and federal authorities to seek criminal and civil penalties on financial actors that helped cause the current crisis. “Rules don’t work if […]

David Brooks, 3 days after a semi-courageous, “what-the-heck-is-going-on” column, received calls from the senior staff at the White House and quietly got back in line: In the first place, they do not see themselves as a group of liberal crusaders. They see themselves as pragmatists who inherited a government and an economy that have been […]

Stephanie Gutmann brings up something I’ve noticed. She starts with an Orwell quote: “The program of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor…All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang […]

So, 95% are going to get a tax cut are they? Well, that’s great. But what the government gives on the one hand, it will find a way of taking with the other. It needs money folks, and it will get what it needs one way or the other: A senior Senate Democrat said Tuesday […]

As you might imagine, the 5% (the taxable “rich”) are trying to figure out how to become a part of the 95% (the “tax cut” rest): President Barack Obama’s tax proposal – which promises to increasetaxes for those families with incomes of $250,000 or more — has some Americans brainstorming ways to decrease their pay, […]

A billion dollars of your tax dollars is on its way to Palestine, 300 million of it earmarked for the Gaza Strip where Hamas still rules: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday will pledge about $300 million in U.S. humanitarian aid for the war-torn Gaza Strip, plus about $600 million in assistance […]

A lot of high-fives on the left concerning a portion of the budget dealing with energy. The Center For American Progress, in a post entitled “Energy Budget Is Sunlight After Eight Years of Darkness” says: The most significant energy proposal in this budget is the inclusion of revenue in 2012 from the auction of all […]

Barack Obama is about to submit his first budget to Congress. Finally, because we’re also suffering from a deficit of trust, I am committed to restoring a sense of honesty and accountability to our budget. – President Barack Obama to a joint session of Congress, Feb 24, 2009 That’s the promise. The reality, as the […]

First the Obama speech. My overall impression was that of a campaign speech. High flying rhetoric, intentions hidden in comfortable rhetoric that Americans find more acceptable than other and contradictions which were so evident that I’m surprised the media let them pass (ok, not really, but I thought I’d jab them a little). However, in […]

No doubt this will somehow end up being blamed on “global warming”: A rocket carrying a NASA global warming satellite has landed in the ocean near Antarctica after an early morning launch failure. The mishap occurred Tuesday after the Taurus XL rocket carrying the Orbiting Carbon Observatory blasted off into the pre-dawn sky from California’s […]

I have a good friend, a retired general officer, who served in the Pentagon during the invasion of Iraq and a year or so afterward. When I saw him at a military reunion a year ago, he told me about duty at Dover Air Force Base in DE in the course of our conversation. By […]

Where to start with this joker: California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested that his party is out of touch with average Americans on the issue of health care. “You’ve got to listen to the people. If the nation is screaming out loud, ‘We need health care reform. We want to have universal health care. We […]

Apparently signs equal threats to some of our police: An Oklahoma City police officer wrongly pulled over a man last week and confiscated an anti-President Barack Obama sign the man had on his vehicle. The officer misinterpreted the sign as threatening, said Capt. Steve McCool, of the Oklahoma City Police Department, and took the sign, […]

As you recall, the following is partially blamed for getting us into the current housing crisis: Ever since the credit crisis began, a lot of blame has been heaped on adjustable-rate mortgages, home loans that recalibrate according to market fluctuations. One brand of these innovative mortgages that have come under special criticism has been so-called […]

Of course part of the huge and porky “stimulus” bill was billions to Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) program. Of the the past beneficiaries of that program has been our old buddies at ACORN. But, you say, the election is over – ACORN can’t collect taxpayer money for fraudulent voter registration anymore. Never fear, ACORN […]

As the NY Times reports today in an article about Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke’s trip to the Middle Eastern region: Mr. Obama has said that he will reach out to Iran for direct talks, and last week the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said that Iran was ready. The two nations have not spoken directly since […]

You’ve just witnessed the unimaginable – Congress passes a 789 billion dollar pork-laden spending bill disguised as a “stimulus” bill and they may be contemplating “Unimaginable II”: Despite the enormous size of the $787 billion stimulus plan, some economists worry that it won’t make a big enough dent in unemployment and that lawmakers will have […]

The other entity who got us into this financial mess has no problem whatsoever about using the equivalent when necessary or convenient while lecturing others about their insensitivity to the times: A government plane will ferry Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) back to Washington from his mother’s wake in Ohio in time to vote tonight, courtesy […]

As the details of the compromise stimulus package come out, most will find plenty to not like. For instance, those stimulative tax cuts for 95% of Americans: Q: What are some of the tax breaks in the bill? A: It includes Obama’s signature “Making Work Pay” tax credit for 95 percent of workers, though negotiators […]

The rent-seekers find another ally: BILL PRESS: …And, thanks for your leadership, thanks for your good work, it’s great to have you there Senator. And, great to have you on the show. Appreciate it. SENATOR TOM HARKIN (D-IA): Well, anytime – just let me know Bill. I love being with you, and thanks again for […]

My favorite line from the other night’s Obama presser: Now, just in terms of the historic record here, the Republicans were brought in early and were consulted. And you’ll remember that when we initially introduced our framework, they were pleasantly surprised and complimentary about the tax cuts that were presented in that framework. Those tax […]

Or is this just “cynical manipulation?” President Obama in Elkhart, IN (email transcript – Fed. News Svc) today in answer to a question by Helen Castello, a person in the crowd attending the rally: So — so we may — we may debate– we — we can debate, you know, whether you’d rather have this […]

The fear-mongering and panic inducing rhetoric used by the Obama administration and Congresional Democrats concerning the “stimulus” bill has set up another probable broken promise – this time on an unimaginably massive scale. The Promise: The end of wasteful government spending and more accountability: -Make Government Spending More Accountable and Efficient: Obama and Biden will […]